Russian missile, drone barrage kills at least 8 civilians in Ukraine; Poland probes airspace breach

A wave of Russian ballistic missiles and drones struck Ukraine overnight into Thursday, July 30, killing at least eight civilians, including children, and wounding dozens more, officials said.

Further details on the exact locations and extent of the damage were not immediately available.

The attack added to Russia's near-daily bombing of Ukrainian cities as Moscow appeared to target Kyiv's shortage of Western-supplied missile defenses, according to the report. The strikes hit regions across Ukraine, including areas near the Polish border, far from the eastern front line, where Ukraine is believed to store and make weapons.

Poland, a NATO member, said it was investigating Ukrainian reports that a Russian cruise missile entered its airspace during the attack.

The strikes came two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, where he asked for faster, larger shipments of Patriot air defense systems, the report said. Trump has promised to let Ukraine build its own Patriots, though setting up production could take time.

Zelenskyy praised his forces despite the shortage. "Given the critical shortage of air defense missiles from our partners, our warriors are accomplishing truly incredible things, demonstrating a very high level of professionalism," he said on social media. He added that stopping Russia's missile threat is key to protecting Ukrainian lives.

Russia has said it targets only military sites, the report noted.

Zelenskyy said Russia hit at least 10 Ukrainian regions, damaging or destroying dozens of homes, businesses and infrastructure sites. He said Russia fired more than 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, along with over 280 attack drones, of which Ukraine intercepted more than 260.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted Ukrainian air bases, weapons factories, and military communication and supply sites, including drone plants, a missile factory, an aircraft repair facility, an electronics plant and a chemical plant.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the attack killed six people and wounded 10, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration. He said the dead included a 6-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17 in the Kryvyi Rih area. 

Zelenskyy said the children's parents were also killed, though two more children were rescued alive from the rubble. "It was an ordinary home, blown (to) smithereens by a ballistic missile," Zelenskyy said on X.

In Kyiv, Russian ballistic missiles killed a 31-year-old man and wounded two others, the National Police said. Residential buildings, a market, a garage complex, storage sites and vehicles were damaged, police said.

A cruise missile strike in Lviv wounded 34 people, including three children aged 6, 13 and 15, said Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional military administration. Emergency crews were still searching the rubble, according to the report.

In the Poltava region, a drone strike on warehouses killed one person, said regional military head Vitalii Diakivnych.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland overnight, calling it proof that Ukraine's air defenses urgently need strengthening. Polish authorities had not confirmed his comments, the report said.

Poland's Operational Command said it tracked an unidentified object flying westward and launched an F-16 to intercept it, but the object vanished from radar before being identified. A helicopter crew later found a likely impact site in an undeveloped area near Tarnawa-Kolonia in Lublin province, the command said. Polish authorities have not confirmed what, if anything, crashed. Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the site Thursday, July 30, morning.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 258 Ukrainian drones overnight. A warehouse belonging to Russian online retailer Wildberries caught fire after a strike in the Penza region, said Penza Governor Oleg Melnichenko, adding that one person was hurt and 200 workers were evacuated.

Wildberries also said a Ukrainian drone strike set fire to its warehouse in Sarapul, in the Udmurtia region, more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine, though workers were evacuated safely. Ukraine has accused Wildberries of supplying goods used by the Russian military.