Deadly Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s western city of Lviv prompts NATO member Poland to scramble jets

Ukraine’s far western city of Lviv has been spared most of the bloodshed and destruction since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its former Soviet-era ally two-and-a-half years ago. But before dawn on Wednesday, Moscow reminded Ukraine — and its Western backers — that the city only 40 miles from the border with NATO-member Poland is not immune from the war. 

Lviv residents started reporting explosions at 5:40 a.m. local time, with buildings near the city’s railway station, homes, schools and clinics all being hit. Mayor Andriy Sadovy said Russia had launched drones and hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, damaging more than 50 buildings in the center of the city. At least seven people were killed, including three children, officials said.

In one video circulating widely on social media, rescuers frantically clawed through the rubble of a destroyed home to find a lifeless, dust-covered girl buried under the debris. Two girls, aged nine and 14, and a baby, were reported dead. Dozens more were wounded.

The attack so close to Poland prompted the government in Warsaw to scramble fighter jets to the Ukrainian border area, with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski telling the Financial Times that “membership in NATO does not trump each country’s responsibility for the protection of its own airspace — it’s our own constitutional duty.”

“I’m personally of the view that, when hostile missiles are on course of entering our airspace, it would be legitimate self-defense (to shoot them down) because once they do cross into our airspace, the risk of debris injuring someone is significant,” he told the FT.

Ukraine’s military, meanwhile, issued an alert for the entire country to be ready for further aerial attacks. Russia has launched waves of hundreds of missiles and drones at the capital city Kyiv and across the country since Sunday, possibly in retaliation for Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region nearly a month ago.

Russian forces have so far been unable to dislodge the occupying Ukrainian troops, and Kyiv says they now hold about 450 square miles of Russian territory, an area about half the size of Rhode Island. 

In the war-torn east of Ukraine, the city of Poltava was still reeling Wednesday from a Russian attack the previous morning. Two ballistic missiles slammed into the Poltava Military Communications Institute training center, killing at least 51 people and wounding more than 200 others. It was Moscow’s deadliest attack since October, when a Russian airstrike killed 59 people attending a funeral at a café in the Kharkiv region. 

“The second missile hit three seconds after the first. I ran outside, there was smoke and dust everywhere,” said Mykyta Petrov, a cadet who was inside the military academy when it was hit Tuesday in Poltava. “Lots of people were outside having a cigarette. Many of them were killed.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to exact revenge on Russia for the deadly strike, and an investigation was launched to determine whether enough had been done to protect the military training facility. 

“The Russian scum will surely pay,” he said, while also aiming some frustration at Western allies.

“Air defense systems are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere,” Zelenskyy said. 

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tendered his resignation after Russia’s attack on Poltava. The 43-year-old had been the face of Ukrainian diplomacy around the world, trying to rally global support for the country since the war began.

Zelenskyy said last week that he would embark on a major government reshuffle before the winter.