KYIV —Poland and NATO scrambled military aircraft when a missile apparently fired by Russia landed deep inside Polish territory, as Moscow launched deadly long-range attacks across Ukraine that killed at least eight people.The missile landed and exploded about 90 kilometers into Polish territory early Thursday, leaving a massive crater in the middle of a field, local authorities said.”All the indications are that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% certain about the type of missile and who launched it,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk told an emergency meeting.”There was no direct threat because the missile landed in an uninhabited area; we were ready to shoot it down had it continued its flight,” he added.Two NATO fighter jets, a NATO refueling aircraft, a Polish early warning aircraft and a Polish helicopter were deployed to counter the threat, a spokesperson for the alliance told CNN.Tusk later visited the site where the object fell, near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia, just over 100 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.”There is no reason to think the target was Poland,” hesaid, adding that Ukrainian fighter pilots had attempted to shoot down missiles approaching the Polish border.Tusk vowed to maintain support for Ukraine, saying his government would consider providing further aid including additional Patriot systems. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said earlier in a post on X that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland.The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.NATO will “continue to take all necessary measures to defend NATO territory, General Alexus G. Grynkewich, the alliance’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, said in a statement to CNN.Still, there are no reasons to think Poland was the intended target, Tusk said later when he visited the crater site, according to Reuters.Poland had earlier reported scrambling fighter jets in response to a major Russian attack on Ukraine, which hit large swathes of the country, killed at least eight people, including children, and left dozens more injured or trapped under rubble.The attacks come days after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the United States to again plead for more air defenses, as Russia intensified air assaults on the country’s cities. At least eight people, including six members of a single family, were killed in the attacks.In the village of Radushne, near Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, parents and four children were killed after a ballistic missile blew a family home “into smithereens,” Zelensky said. Two more children were pulled alive from the rubble, he added.Two girls, aged 5 and 12, were among the four children killed, Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the southern Ukrainian city’s military administration, said on Telegram, calling it a “dark night.”In Lviv, emergency workers rescued an injured 10-year-old boy, who was carried away on a stretcher, as they raced to save people trapped under rubble after an attack on a residential building. Dozens across the country were wounded.The missile crashed in an undeveloped area near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in Lublin province, Poland’s army said. Polish police said residents reported hearing a powerful blast.Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it carried out a “massive strike using long-range precision weapons from land, air, and sea” as well as attack drones on military sites across Ukraine, in a statement posted to Telegram Thursday.Poland’s army said the country’s air defenses observed at least a dozen missiles over western Ukraine, which posed a potential threat to Polish airspace.The attack damaged or destroyed dozens of homes, businesses and infrastructure facilities, Zelensky said on Telegram Thursday, and used more than 70 missiles and over 280 attack drones.Ukraine intercepted more than 260 drones, according to Zelensky, in what he said was a commendable feat given a “critical shortage of air defense missiles from our partners.”On his way home on Wednesday, Zelensky stopped in the Polish city of Lublin to meet with Tusk. The two leaders discussed “the outcomes of (Zelensky’s) visit to the United States and the security of Poland, Ukraine, and all of Europe,” according to a post to X by Tusk.
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