Poland scrambles aircraft as Russia attacks Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles – Europe live | Europe

Polish and allied aircraft were deployed early on Saturday to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched airstrikes targeting western Ukraine near the border with Poland, armed forces of the Nato-member country said.

“Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” the operational command said in a post on X.

At 03.40 British time, nearly all of Ukraine was under air raid alerts after Ukrainian air force warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks.

Shortly after 05.00 British time, Polish and allied air forces ended the operation as airstrikes by the Russian Federation against Ukraine were ceased, the Polish command said, adding that the actions were “preventative and aimed at securing airspace in areas adjacent to the threatened area”.

The move comes after Russia fired 40 missiles and about 580 drones at Ukraine in a “massive attack” that killed three and wounded dozens, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.

“Every such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to terrorise civilians and destroy our infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said on social media, urging Kyiv’s allies to provide more air defence systems and hit Moscow with extra sanctions.

“The enemy is attacking with strike drones and missiles. Peaceful settlements of the region are under attack,” Mykola Kalashnyk, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said.

The mayor of Mykolaiv said that Russia had also hit the southern Ukrainian city with drones and missiles but that there were “no casualties”.

Russian officials said their forces had repelled “massive” Ukrainian attacks in the Volgograd and Rostov regions, while one person was wounded in the nearby region of Saratov.

Russian forces have been grinding across eastern Ukraine for months, trying to take control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Hopes of a truce have faded since US president Donald Trump held separate high-profile meetings with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Zelenskyy last month.

In other developments:

• Three Russian MiG-31 fighters violated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland on Friday, Estonia said, triggering complaints of a dangerous new provocation from the EU and NATO. Italian F-35 fighters attached to Nato’s air defence support mission in the Baltic states were scrambled to intercept the Russian jets and warn them off, Estonian and Italian officials said, with alliance chief Mark Rutte praising the “quick and decisive response”.

• Russia’s defence ministry on Friday denied that three of its MiG-31 fighter jets had illegally entered Estonian airspace. The ministry said the jets were on a “scheduled flight… in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states, as confirmed by objective monitoring”.

• Zelenskyy on Friday condemned the move, calling the 12-minute incursion “outrageous” and accusing Moscow of deliberately expanding its “destabilising activity” three and a half years after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “These are not accidents. This is a systematic Russian campaign directed against Europe, against Nato, against the West. And it requires a systemic response,” Zelensky posted on X.

• President Donald Trump said on Friday he would soon be briefed on reports that Russia had violated Estonia’s airspace and made clear he was not pleased with the situation. “I don’t love it. I don’t like when that happens. Could be big trouble,” Trump told reporters.

• One or more large fires erupted early on Saturday at Russia’s Saratov oil refinery as it was hit heavily by Ukrainian drones that attacked the target deep inside Russian territory for at least the second time in a week. Videos vetted and posted by online analysts showed incoming UAVs followed by big explosions and flames rising from the site while air raid sirens blared. The major refinery is nearly 600km (370 miles) east of the frontline in Ukraine. The Russian governor in the area, Roman Busargin, confirmed an attack by UAVs.

• The EU proposed on Friday to bring forward by a year to January 2027 a total ban on Russian natural gas imports as part of its 19th package of sanctions targeting Moscow. The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, said “it is time to turn off the tap” of fossil fuel revenue to the Kremlin. Zelenskyy welcomed the measures, saying they would have a significant effect on the Russian economy.

• Ukrainian troops pressed on with a frontline counteroffensive around two eastern cities on Friday with Zelenskyy saying heavy losses were being inflicted on Russian forces. The counteroffensive had disrupted Russian plans in their longstanding objective of seizing the logistics centre of Pokrovsk, said Ukraine’s president. Russia said its forces captured two new villages – Muravka outside Pokrovsk and Novoivanivka further in the Zaporizhzhia region – but its defence ministry made no reference to the Ukrainian drive near the towns of Pokrovsk and Dobropillia.

• The general staff of Ukraine’s military listed Muravka among settlements where its forces had halted 87 attacks near Pokrovsk. Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces were holding their positions around Kupiansk – an area of Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region that has been subject to Russian assaults for months.

• Zelenskyy said on Friday that Kyiv plans to begin exporting certain types of weapons, such as naval drones, to finance its domestic military production. “We already have certain types of weapons in much larger quantities than we actually need today in Ukraine,” Zelensky said in his daily address.

• Russia has filed an appeal with the International Court of Justice over a decision deeming Moscow responsible for the downing of a Malaysian jetliner over Ukraine in 2014, killing 298 people, the court said on Friday. Australia and the Netherlands, the countries with the most fatalities in the disaster, had launched the case, calling for Russia to assume responsibility for the downing and pay damages.