Several NATO Nations Scramble Jets as Russian Airstrike Kills At Least 20 Including Children
The air forces of several NATO states were scrambled overnight to protect the airspace of the alliance along its eastern border as Russia launched one of its deadliest air strikes against Ukraine’s western regions of the war so far.
Polish, Romanian, German, Spanish, Norwegian, and Dutch fighter jets were scrambled in two deployments in airspace bordering Ukraine over Poland and Romania and the Russian armed forces hammered western Ukraine. According to Kyiv, Russia launched 476 drones, 47 cruise missiles and one ballistic missiles in strikes across the country, but particularly on Western cities Ternopil and Lviv.
At least 20 people have been found dead in Ternopil, which is approximately 225 miles west of Ukrainian capital Kyiv and 110 miles short of the Polish border. Of the killed, at least two are children, and a further 66 were wounded including 16 children in the strikes which badly damaged two apartment blocks.
Ukraine said it scrambled its own Western-built jet fighters including U.S.-made F-16s and French Mirage-2000 jets to shoot down Russian missiles. In all, Kyiv said 41 cruise missiles were shot down, 10 of them by Western-supplied Ukraine Air Force jets.
The BBC notes the unusually large and deadly Russian air raid came one day after Ukraine said it had used U.S.-made ATACMS missiles against targets inside Russia, the first time this has happened under the Trump Presidency. (Read more from “Several NATO Nations Scramble Jets as Russian Airstrike Kills At Least 20 Including Children” HERE)
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