Poland scrambles NATO jets as Russia launches long-range missiles at Ukraine
Poland was forced to scramble warplanes for NATO overnight as Russia launched a brutal missile and drone attack on Ukraine.
Reports said 68 missiles and 430 drones were unleashed on the Kyiv region - 250 of the drones were Iranian-designed Shaheds.
Five people were killed and 15 wounded in the Kyiv region while four more were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region, including children aged 11 and 16 in Zaporizhzhia.
NATO sent up fighters and an early warning surveillance aircraft over Ukrainian neighbour Poland as a precaution, following the scrambling of jets over Romania a day earlier.
All but six missiles and 28 drones were shot down or disrupted but Russia claims to have hit power plants that were supplying military bases.
Warsaw's operational command said in a statement: 'Due to the activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation carrying out strikes on the territory of Ukraine, Polish and allied aircraft have begun operating in our airspace.
'In accordance with the procedures in force, the Operational Commander of the Armed Forces has activated the necessary forces and assets at his disposal.
'Quick-reaction fighter pairs and an airborne early-warning aircraft have been scrambled, while ground-based air-defence and radar reconnaissance systems have reached the highest state of readiness.'
A woman walks past a burning house at the site of Russian missile and drone strike in Brovary near Kyiv last night
Firefighters put out the fire in a residential Brovary neighborhood following the strike
The attack came after Donald Trump snubbed Vladimir Putin's audacious offer to take enriched uranium from its ally Iran into Russia, supposedly to help end the war.
This would have been enough uranium for 10 nuclear bombs and could be converted into weapons-grade within weeks.
An American official told Axios that the offer 'hasn't been accepted. The US position is we need to see the uranium secured.'
Putin used his Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers - part of his nuclear attack strike force - to hit Ukraine overnight with conventional missiles, targeting civilian energy facilities.
The barrage of missiles included Kalibrs, Kh-101s and Iskanders as well as Iranian designed Shahed drones that Tehran has been firing in the Middle East.
Warehouses and production facilities were hit in Brovary, a city close to Kyiv. In the Kharkiv region, a suburban train was hit.
Ukrainian strikes set ablaze the Afipsky oil refinery and hit the port of Kavkaz, both in Russia's Krasnodar region.
Major explosions hit occupied Crimea where Russian Nebo-U radar installations were damaged.
Following the attacks, Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was ready for the next round of trilateral peace talks to end the more than four-year-old war.
He said that the US must decide when and where the talks will take place, but revealed that Russia had declined to send a delegation when the Americans proposed hosting a meeting between the two warring nations.
'We are waiting for a response from the Americans,' Mr Zelensky said in a media briefing on Saturday.
'Either they will change the country where we meet, or the Russians must confirm the US.
'We are not blocking any of these initiatives. We want a trilateral meeting to take place.'
Talks have been postponed by the US following the breakout of the Iran war on February 28, following US-Israeli strikes which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but spread across the region.
The Iran War has drawn the international spotlight from Ukraine and Mr Zelensky said there is a 'very high' risk that it also threatens to deplete the country's air defence stockpiles.
Ukraine's battle-tested drone-killing tech has been in high demand following the beginning of the war and Mr Zelensky said that Washington had reached out to Ukraine 'several times' for assistance.
However, Mr Trump declared 'No, we don't need their help on drone defence', in a Fox News Radio interview on Friday.
But Mr Zelensky claimed otherwise, saying requests had come from various US military institutions to Ukraine's Ministry of Defence and other military leaders. He said: 'All our institutions received these requests, and we responded to them'.
Israel's interceptor missile stockpiles are already running 'critically' low, US officials say, and last year the US itself used up a quarter of its THAAD interceptor missiles, firing off more than 150 in the 12 Days War in June.
The White House maintains that the US has 'more than enough' supplies to defeat Iran and had 'anticipated' the low stocks of Israeli air defence missiles, which they are 'finding a solution' for.
Mr Zelensky said he does not have a clear picture of available Ukrainian stockpiles and had discussed with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday whether SAMP/T systems could serve as an alternative to US-made Patriot batteries for intercepting ballistic missiles.
Macron said Ukraine would be 'first in line' to test any viable alternative.
