Children among eight dead in Russian strikes, Ukraine officials say

Several other cities were under attack, with missiles reaching western Ukraine, according to BBC Ukraine.

The armed forces in neighbouring Poland said they had mobilised on-duty fighter jets during the strikes, after detecting at least a dozen missiles over western Ukraine that could have posed a threat to Polish airspace.

The closest one was observed about 5km from the Polish border at 03:29, after which it changed direction and headed eastwards.

The military said they had subsequently located a 10m crater with scattered debris on Polish soil – in a field about 2km away from the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia, Lublin province, in the south. The site has been secured.

Police said they had received a report of a powerful explosion in the area.

Ukraine had been expecting the Russian offensive, with Zelensky warning on Wednesday that “there is a high probability that the attack will occur tonight”.

Meanwhile in Russia, a regional official reported an overnight attack on the warehouse of a retailer in the city of Penza.

One person was injured at a Wildberries facility, Regional Governor Oleg Melnichenko posted on Telegram.

Wildberries is often described as “Russia’s Amazon” and its sites have been the target of recent Ukrainian attacks.

The military action follows repeated calls by Ukraine’s president to bolster Kyiv’s anti-ballistic missile defences.

“The protection of people’s lives depends directly on their willingness, or lack of willingness, to provide air defence missiles,” he wrote on X on Wednesday.

The Patriot is one of the few air defence systems able to intercept ballistic missiles, which Russia has increasingly used to bombard Ukrainian cities.