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Russia’s latest overnight drone strikes on Ukraine hit a Polish factory in the central city of Vinnytsia in what Poland’s foreign minister described on Wednesday as a targeted attack.
Russian aerial bombardment overnight pounded four Ukrainian cities, injuring at least 15 people in attacks that mostly targeted energy infrastructure, officials said.
In a post on X, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski wrote that the director of the Barlinek Group’s factory in Vinnytsia had said drones hit the plant from three directions and that the attack was “intentional”.
“There are injuries, including two severely burned,” Sikorski wrote on X, saying that Ukrainian authorities and the Polish consulate were responding to the incident.
“Putin’s criminal war is coming closer to our borders,” he added.
The Vinnytsia factory is the Barlinek Group’s first overseas branch. It was opened in October 2007 and manufacturers floorboards and panels. The Barlinek Group belongs to Michał Sołowow, who is estimated to be the richest man in Poland. According to Forbes, his net worth is $13.8 billion (€11.9bn), making him the 187th richest person on earth.
Euronews has reached out to the Barlinek Group’s spokesperson for comment.
Russia ramps up aerial attacks
In the latest overnight attack, Russia launched 400 Shahed and decoy drones, as well as one ballistic missile, the Ukrainian air force said.
The strikes targeted northeastern Kharkiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, Odesa in the south and Vinnytsia.
Russia’s escalating aerial campaign against civilian areas comes amid a 2 September deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal in the three-year war, under the threat of possible severe Washington sanctions if it doesn’t.
Trump on Monday pledged to deliver more weapons to Ukraine, including vital Patriot air defence systems, and threatened to slap additional sanctions on Russia.
It was Trump’s toughest stance toward Russian President Vladimir Putin since returning to the White House nearly six months ago.
But some US lawmakers and European government officials expressed misgivings that the 50-day deadline handed Putin the opportunity to capture more Ukrainian territory before any settlement to end the fighting.
Other US ultimatums to Putin in recent months have failed to persuade the Russian leader to stop his full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed in the war, many of them along the more than 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line, and Russian barrages of cities have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, the United Nations says.