By Lex Harvey, Svitlana Vlasova, Victoria Butenko, Anna Chernova

Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN) — Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a missile apparently fired by Russia landed deep inside its territory early Thursday, as Moscow launched deadly long-range attacks across Ukraine that killed at least eight people.

The missile landed and exploded about 90 kilometers (55 miles) into Polish territory early Thursday, leaving a massive crater in the middle of a field, local authorities said.

“We were prepared to shoot down the missile if it had continued its flight,” Tusk told an emergency government meeting, according to his office on X. “All indications suggest that it was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.”

“NATO commanders are being kept informed,” he added.

Poland had earlier reported scrambling fighter jets in response to a major Russian attack on Ukraine, which hit large swathes of the country and killed at least eight people, including children, and left several people trapped under rubble.

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.

“During the Russian massive missile attack on western Ukraine, a violation of Polish airspace occurred,” Tusk said earlier in a post to X. A government spokesperson said Tusk was on his way to the crash site.

Separately, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said a Russian cruise missile had “crossed into Poland as part of Russia’s massive strike against Ukraine” in a post to X.

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.

Any potential Russian attack so deep inside a NATO member’s territory would risk being perceived as an escalation in Moscow’s yearslong war on Ukraine. It is not the first time Poland has reported a “Russian-made” missile landing inside its territory. In November 2022, one struck and killed two people but that incident was only 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) from the Ukrainian border.

CNN has reached out to NATO for comment.

Russia’s overnight assault on Ukraine follows a visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House Tuesday, where he asked President Donald Trump to provide Ukraine with additional air defense systems.

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 – not far from the site of the next day’s crash – 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.

Poland has routinely scrambled jets in response to Russian attacks on western Ukraine, though they have rarely entered its territory. NATO fighter jets shot down multiple Russian drones that violated Polish airspace last September, denouncing Moscow for “absolutely dangerous behavior.”

Deadly month for Ukraine

The attacks – which come as Ukraine has seen its heaviest number of civilian casualties in one month since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 – killed at least eight people across the country, according to its foreign minister Andrii Sybiha.

In the village of Radushne, near the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, parents and three 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 three children killed, Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s military administration, said on Telegram, calling it a “dark night.”

Graphic video from Radushne showed bodies strewn amid the rubble of a shattered building, with fires still burning.

Two unseen women could be heard speaking. “We’ve pulled one child out. There are still some lying over there,” one said.

“There are children here. There are many children,” the other said.

Rescue workers were also trying to save people trapped under rubble after an attack on a residential building in Lviv, Zelensky said. Dozens across the country were wounded.

Russian warehouse on fire

Also on Thursday, a warehouse for the Russian retailer Wildberries caught fire in the western city of Penza after a Ukrainian drone attack, regional governor Oleg Melnichenko said on Telegram. One person was wounded and about 200 people were evacuated from the site, Melnichenko said.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Wildberries distribution centers, Russia’s Amazon equivalent, bringing Moscow’s war even closer to home by disrupting the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Russians.

Kyiv has claimed the Wildberries facilities are legitimate military targets because they supply Russia’s frontline troops in Ukraine, which Moscow denies.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.