Russia launched another wave of missile and drone attacks across Ukraine on Thursday, leaving at least eight people dead, including one person in Kyiv. The strikes reached as far west as Lviv and prompted neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets to secure its airspace.

The attacks came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump had agreed to provide Ukraine with licences for Patriot missile systems to strengthen the country’s air defences.

Air raid alerts sounded across much of Ukraine as explosions hit Kyiv. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said several non-residential buildings caught fire during the strikes.

Ukraine’s emergency services confirmed one death and two injuries in Kyiv. Six more people, including two children, were killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while authorities also reported one fatality in the Poltava region.

One of the deadliest attacks occurred in Zelenskiy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, where officials said a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile struck a residential building occupied by a large family.

Head of the city’s defence council, Oleksandr Vilkul, said two girls aged five and 12 were among the six victims, while eight others were injured.

Calling it “a dark night,” Vilkul said the missile was launched from Russia’s Voronezh region and directly hit the family’s home. He added that the death toll could still rise as rescue workers continued clearing debris.

In Lviv, close to the Polish border, rescue teams searched through rubble after Russian missiles damaged two apartment buildings and injured 26 people, local officials said.

Before the attacks, Zelenskiy warned that Russia was preparing another large-scale aerial assault and urged Ukraine’s allies to speed up the delivery of advanced air defence systems.

“It is important that our partners fully understand what is happening and that the protection of people’s lives depends directly on their willingness,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces targeted military facilities across Ukraine, including sites in Kyiv, Lviv and the Dnipropetrovsk region. It also claimed to have struck three cargo ships but provided no further details.

Meanwhile, Poland, a NATO and European Union member bordering Ukraine, deployed fighter aircraft to protect its airspace during the attacks.

Polish police in the eastern Lublin region also reported finding a crater and debris from an unidentified object in a field in Bilgoraj County after residents heard a loud explosion.

The escalation also extended into Russia, where Ukrainian drone strikes targeted logistics infrastructure.

Authorities in Russia’s Penza region said a warehouse belonging to Wildberries, the country’s largest online retailer, caught fire after a drone strike.

Regional Governor Oleg Melnichenko said one person was injured and around 200 people were evacuated.

Another Wildberries warehouse in Sarapul, in Russia’s Udmurtia region, was also set ablaze following a separate drone attack, the company said.

Wildberries stated that repeated Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged nearly a dozen of its warehouses, destroying about 10 per cent of its storage capacity and causing significant losses for thousands of small businesses using the platform.

Russia’s biggest lender, Sberbank, also warned that it may have to increase loan-loss provisions as the attacks continue to disrupt online retailers and their suppliers.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 258 Ukrainian drones overnight, including drones over Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

Reuters noted that it could not independently verify the battlefield claims made by either side.

Both Russia and Ukraine continue to deny deliberately targeting civilians in the conflict, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.