Russia launches huge drone attack on western Ukraine by NATO's border, killing six
KYIV - Russia unleashed a massive daytime drone attack on Ukraine on Wednesday, targeting critical infrastructure in the west, killing at least six people and prompting NATO-member Poland to scramble fighter jets, officials said.
Hungary, now led by a government more in line with the European mainstream, condemned the strikes on areas of Ukraine with ethnic Hungarian communities and summoned the Russian ambassador. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the Hungarian action as an "important message".
Zelenskiy, writing on Telegram while attending a security conference in Romania, said the Russian attack was continuing through the evening, with Moscow now deploying missiles.
Zelenskiy had earlier said that since midnight Moscow had launched at least 800 drones, with the attack deliberately targeting regions closest to the borders of NATO countries.
"It certainly cannot be called a coincidence that one of the longest massive Russian attacks against Ukraine takes place precisely at the time when the President of the United States arrived for a visit to China," Zelenskiy said on Telegram.
Zelenskiy said that six people were killed and dozens injured in the attack, which spanned other regions. Ukraine's railway infrastructure was struck 23 times during the barrage, a presidential advisor said, though traffic was maintained.
It was the first such major attack after a three-day U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, which ended on Monday.
Poland scrambled fighter jets as a preventative measure due to the Russian air strikes on Ukraine, the Polish army said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar, speaking after the new government's first cabinet meeting, said the Russian ambassador had been summoned to the foreign ministry on Thursday morning to meet foreign minister Anita Orban.
Orban will condemn the attack at the meeting and ask the ambassador when Russia plans to end the more than four-year-old war, he added. Under the outgoing government voted out of office this month, Hungary blocked aid for Ukraine and tried to slow its efforts to join the EU.
Slovakia closed border crossings with Ukraine for security reasons.
Ukraine's HUR military intelligence said the drone assault was designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences, warning of subsequent missile strikes. It said that Moscow targeted critical infrastructure and essential services in major cities.
ATTACKS IN WESTERN UKRAINE
Ukraine's air force said Russia had used the territory of Belarus and Moldova to fly the drones towards Ukraine. Including attacks overnight, Russia had launched 892 drones at Ukraine as of 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
State-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz said that Russian strikes had damaged two of its facilities in the northeastern region of Kharkiv and in Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv. Governors and mayors reported strikes across western Ukraine.
Three people were killed and another six wounded in the northwestern region of Rivne. An attack on a critical infrastructure facility in Zhovkva left the western town without power. There was also a strike on a residential building in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, local officials said.
The regional governor of Ukraine's far-west Zakarpattia region said the attack was the heaviest since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, with strikes on critical infrastructure sites in several districts.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to the defence minister, said the barrage highlighted the evolving use of drones by Moscow. This time, drones were moving along between 5 km and 10 km (3-6 miles) from the Belarus border to overwhelm Ukraine's air defences and to get through to the western regions, he said.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago, it has mainly carried out major drone and missile strikes at night. In recent months, however, it has frequently struck during daytime.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk and by Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv; Additional reporting by Olena Harmash in Kyiv; Editing by Daniel Flynn, William Maclean, Alexandra Hudson, Ron Popeski and Sanjeev Miglani)
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This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 1:08 PM.