Poland scrambles fighter jets as Russia strikes cities across Ukraine

Russian air strikes killed at least 13 in Ukraine on Thursday, including one in Kyiv, in attacks extending as far as the western city of Lviv, forcing neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets to secure its airspace. The attacks come as President Volodymyr Zelensky returns from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump agreed to give Ukraine ‌licences for Patriot missiles. Air raid alerts sounded across most regions of Ukraine, with a Reuters witness saying explosions were heard in Kyiv. A few non-residential sites caught fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app. One person was killed and two more injured in the capital, emergency services said, with six more, including two children, killed in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava. In Zelensky’s hometown, the central city of Kryvyi Rih, two girls aged 5 and 12 were among six killed, with eight injured in what Oleksandr Vilkul, the city’s defence council head, said was a direct strike by a Russian ⁠Iskander-M ballistic missile. “A dark night,” Vilkul said on Telegram, adding that the missile, launched from Russia’s Voronezh region, struck the home of a large family, and warned ‌the death toll could increase as emergency workers clear away rubble.