Kyiv/Warsaw, December 24: Poland scrambled fighter jets in the early hours of Tuesday after Russia launched a large-scale air attack across Ukraine, including strikes in western regions close to the NATO member’s border, Polish and Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s armed forces said Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at targets across the country, placing most regions under air raid alerts. Air defences were activated over Kyiv, with the city’s military administration saying forces were working to eliminate threats in the sky.
Debris fell near a residential building in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district, damaging windows, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
Russian strikes also hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, triggering emergency power outages, while attacks intensified on the Black Sea port of Odesa, threatening maritime infrastructure and causing significant disruptions to electricity supplies, Ukrainian officials said.
Poland’s military said it had scrambled aircraft to secure its airspace after strikes were reported in western Ukraine near the Polish border, a precautionary step Warsaw has taken during previous Russian attacks close to NATO territory.
The latest assault came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Moscow could step up attacks over the festive period. As of 6:20 a.m. GMT, air raid alerts covered nearly all of Ukraine, according to the country’s air force.
The escalation followed comments by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said Europe stood on the “edge of an abyss” and warned of the risk of an uncontrollable conflict between Russia and NATO. Speaking at a Moscow-based think tank, Ryabkov accused Western countries of undermining European stability, despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The attacks also came two days after U.S.-led peace talks in Miami ended without a breakthrough, as the nearly three-year-old war shows no sign of easing.
