NATO fighters scrambled, air defenses alerted amid deadly Russian strikes in Ukraine

NATO fighter jets were scrambled and ground-based air defense systems put on the highest level of alert in Poland and Romania during a massive and deadly overnight Russian attack on targets across Ukraine, military officials in Warsaw and Bucharest said.

One drone was reported penetrating some 5 miles into Romanian airspace before being lost on radar, the Defense Ministry in Bucharest said in a statement.

At least 20 people were killed in a Russian strike on the western city of Ternopil, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said, where two nine-story residential buildings were hit by Russian munitions. Another 66 people were injured, the ministry said.

“One is on fire, the other has destruction from the third to the ninth floor,” the ministry said of the buildings hit. “About five hundred rescuers and over a hundred units of equipment are working at nine active locations,” the ministry added.

Read more: ABC News