A Ukrainian soldier stood outside the wreckage of what had been his home before dawn on Wednesday, searching the rubble for his wife and her mother. The house, on the outskirts of Kyiv, had been struck by a Russian drone during a night of renewed bombardment that local officials say killed at least three people, among them a child. Several others were wounded, though full casualty figures were still being confirmed as emergency crews worked through the debris. The attacks were not confined to Ukrainian soil.

In neighboring Poland, authorities briefly closed two regional airports, in Lublin and Rzeszow, citing what they described only as "military aviation activity" linked to the assault across the border. Rzeszow, in particular, sits close to a hub used for shipping Western military supplies into Ukraine, and its temporary shutdown underscored how easily the war continues to spill beyond the two countries most directly involved. Flights resumed after several hours, but the episode is likely to renew debate in Warsaw and Brussels about how prepared NATO's eastern flank truly is. For residents of Kyiv, the strikes were the latest in a war that has now stretched well into its fourth year, testing both infrastructure and endurance in roughly equal measure.

Officials in the capital say Russian forces have increasingly paired missiles with swarms of drones, a tactic designed to overwhelm air defenses that are already stretched thin. The human cost, though, is measured house by house, as it was for the serviceman still combing through broken concrete and timber for signs of his family. No formal comment had yet come from Moscow on the strikes by the time officials in Kyiv released their casualty count Wednesday morning.