(WARSAW, POLAND) – A Russian cruise missile is believed to have struck Polish territory overnight, hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk held talks aimed at resolving a diplomatic rift between the two nations.
The unidentified object, thought to be a Kh-101 cruise missile, landed near Lublin in south-eastern Poland, approximately 90km from the Ukrainian border. Polish authorities scrambled F-16 fighter jets during the incident.
Prime Minister Tusk, who visited the area this morning, said all indications pointed to a Russian Kh-101 missile but added that officials required absolute certainty about the type of projectile and its origin. The Polish air force could have shot down the missile but chose to let it continue into an uninhabited area, he said.
Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz described the night as “extremely tough” for Polish air defence units.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the strikes on Ukraine and the violation of Polish airspace, saying support for Ukraine and allies would not waver.
The incident occurred during a large-scale Russian aerial assault that killed eight people and wounded nearly 50 across Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force reported 74 cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles launched, of which 55 were intercepted, alongside 284 attack drones, with 265 shot down.
Cities including Lviv, Kryvyi Rih and Pavlohrad were targeted.
Zelensky had warned of an impending attack on social media, urging Ukrainians to heed air raid sirens.
Separately, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces struck a base for maritime drones in occupied Crimea and hit four Russian tankers in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. Five air defence assets and a drone storage and launch site at Donetsk airport were also targeted.
The Ukrainian air force reported an F-16 fighter jet crashed during a combat mission while hunting drones. The pilot ejected safely and was taken to hospital, with no civilian casualties or ground damage.
Zelensky visited Poland on Wednesday for talks with Tusk, his first visit since a diplomatic dispute over Ukraine’s naming of a military unit after a Second World War formation implicated in the killing of up to 100,000 Polish civilians during the Volhynia massacres. Zelensky has since pledged to grant Poland access to Ukrainian intelligence archives on the subject.
The Ukrainian president also raised the safety of Ukrainian refugees in Poland, where anti-Ukrainian sentiment and hate crimes have increased. Police recorded 180 hate crime reports against Ukrainians in the first half of 2026, a 30% rise compared with the same period last year.
Polish fact-checkers have noted a significant increase in disinformation targeting Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees since the diplomatic rift began, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, in his first extensive interview since his dismissal, said there was “resistance to change” within the defence ministry’s procurement system.
Fedorov told Ukrainska Pravda he could not imagine senior officials holding positions without connections to the defence industry while in government. He said fundamental problems included a culture where officials could not conceive of high office without private commercial interests in defence.
He warned Zelensky months before his dismissal that those affected by procurement reforms would attempt to discredit him. Negative information began circulating in the media and around the president from April, he said.
Fedorov denied a personal feud with former commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, describing it instead as a conflict of worldviews over decision-making speed, the role of younger commanders and military reforms.
“I as defence minister did not block any decision of the general staff and commander-in-chief despite ideological conflicts because the army is fighting 24/7 and must be as effective as possible,” he said.
On his successor, Fedorov said organisational structures must be selected for specific plans and visions rather than focusing on personalities.
He outlined four priorities for Ukraine: intercepting all aerial threats through small air defence systems; halting enemy advances on land by destroying more than 200 Russian soldiers per square kilometre; completing core reforms and solving mobilisation issues; and waging long-range sanctions and cognitive warfare.
Four additional elements included building win-win partnerships, competing across technology cycles, digitisation to track drones, and fighting corruption.
New research suggests India has become a major transit route for sensitive Western technology reaching Russia since the invasion began. Researchers tracked approximately 50,000 controlled or dual-use goods exported from third countries into India and then onwards to Russia, including European-made electronics and precision components.
Since the invasion until early 2025, exports from India to Russia of sensitive UK-origin goods increased by 180%, while Swedish-origin goods rose by 455%, according to data.
On Patriot missile production, analysts said that even with licences, establishing domestic production in Ukraine would take one to two years rather than months, though the prospect could influence Russian strategic calculations.
Regarding the Kerch Bridge, commentators suggested Ukrainian forces may have chosen not to destroy the structure to allow Russian personnel a route out of occupied Crimea, while generating propaganda wins through images of fleeing traffic.
Russian casualties reported by Ukraine’s general staff at 1,360 per day were described by analysts as likely accurate within approximately 5%, supported by digitised battlefield footage from reconnaissance drones.
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