NATO countries scrambled fighter jets early on Sunday, according to the Polish military, after a Ukrainian official said Moscow had launched its largest-scale air attack on the country in more than three years.
Poland’s Operational Command said its fighter jets, along with other NATO aircraft, were scrambled with ground-based air defenses and reconnaissance systems put on the “highest state of readiness” after Russia launched overnight attacks on Ukrainian soil.
Warsaw’s military said in a later statement NATO aircraft had finished operations after the “level of threat from missile strikes by Russian aviation on Ukrainian territory” reduced. No Russian missiles or drones entered Polish airspace, the command said.
An F-16 fighter jet takes part in the NATO Air Shielding exercise near the air base in Lask, central Poland on October 12, 2022.
An F-16 fighter jet takes part in the NATO Air Shielding exercise near the air base in Lask, central Poland on October 12, 2022.
RADOSLAW JOZWIAK/AFP via Getty Images
Ukrainian authorities said Russia had launched 477 drones and decoys, as well as 60 missiles of various types, at Ukraine overnight. The country’s air force said it had shot down 211 drones with another 225 straying before hitting their targets. Air defenses intercepted one of the short-range ballistic missiles, four of the Kalibr cruise missiles and 33 Kh-101 missiles, according to the military.
The attacks into Sunday were the largest airstrikes on Ukraine of more than three years of full-scale war in the country in terms of number of incoming threats, Colonel Yuriy Ignat, an official with Ukraine’s air force, confirmed to Newsweek.
Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine have occasionally spilled over into NATO nations like Poland and Romania, which border Ukraine.
NATO members are collectively obliged to respond to attacks on alliance nations with full force.
Drones and missiles entering NATO airspace have not been treated as attacks on the alliance so far, but Polish authorities have repeatedly scrambled aircraft because of Moscow’s aerial attacks on Ukraine.
British and Swedish aircraft arrived in Poland in early April to take up a several-month rotation of NATO air policing in the eastern European country.
Ukrainian authorities in the western Lviv and Volyn regions, bordering Poland, reported air alerts overnight into Sunday, but no casualties. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said overnight “a massive attack on the western regions of Ukraine is underway,” targeting critical infrastructure.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said a child had been injured in the central Ukrainian city of Smila, adding that Russia was “targeting everything that sustains life.” Ukraine’s state emergency service said five other people were injured in Smila, with a college and three other buildings damaged.
“They struck energy facilities, infrastructure, and residential areas,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, said in a post to social media.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement it had launched a “massive strike with high-precision long-range air, sea and land-based weapons,” including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 4 Kinzhal missiles from the airspace above its Tambov region, southeast of Moscow.
Moscow said it had targeted facilities propping up Ukraine’s military industry and the country’s oil refineries.
Ukrainian officials said an F-16 fighter jet pilot, named as Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustimenko, was killed while intercepting multiple targets. Zelensky said he had ordered a full investigation into Ustimenko’s death, adding: “I am grateful to everyone who is defending Ukraine.”
At least two other Ukrainian pilots have died operating F-16s since last summer.
Russia fired more than 114 missiles, over 1,270 drones and close to 1,100 glide bombs at Ukraine in the past week, Zelensky said.