NATO F-16s Scrambled in Eastern Europe as Russia Launches Largest Air Raid on Ukraine Yet

Russia launched what Ukraine said would be the largest air assault of the war to date, with nearly 500 missiles and drones airborne, prompting Warsaw to scramble NATO air assets to protect its airspace.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 479 drones, four ballistic missiles, and 16 cruise missiles against its territory overnight. If the figures are accurate, it would make Sunday evening the biggest Russian air raid against Ukraine in the course of the over-three-year war to date, and underlines the ability of the combatants to sustain ever-larger drone attacks as the conflict goes on, given Russia launched another historic in scale drone assault just last week.

Despite the scale of the assault, Ukraine maintained the damage inflicted was relatively minor, citing the defensive efforts of its jet interceptors, land-based defensive missiles, and electronic warfare countermeasures which bring down drones by disrupting their sensors and other equipment. Of the 479 drones, the Ukraine military claims to have shot down 292, and brought down 187 through electronic countermeasures.

They claimed all of the missiles but one, a Kh-22 cruise missile, were brought down by national defences. In all Ukraine said Russian attacks succeeded in 10 of the near-500 launches, and a further 17 places suffered damage from falling wreckage from shot-down missiles and drones.

Ukraine also struck at Russia overnight, Moscow claimed, stating they intercepted and destroyed 49 drones.

The Russian strike was of sufficient scale and proximity to NATO’s eastern borders that the Operational Command of the Armed Forces (DORSZ) in Warsaw, Poland scrambled the on-duty “Polish and allied” fighter jets, activated ground-based air defence, and placed its reconnaissance systems at the “highest state of readiness”. Poland stated this act was “preventative” and later confirmed the scrambled systems had been stood down with no violations of Polish airspace detected. 

Errant missiles from the Ukraine war have entered NATO airspace several times in recent years, apparently launched by both Russia and Ukraine, although not seemingly deliberately. Russian strikes have hit targets inside Ukrainian territory so close to the border with the rest of Europe that the Romanian government has even deployed new air raid shelters to border communities in case a future strike misses and crosses over. 

Russia’s near-500 drone and missile attack last night underlines the Moscow’s ability to sustain major attacks at comparatively high pace. Just last week, an air raid of “more than 400 drones and 40 missiles” was called “among the war’s largest”. That raid came as Russia warned it would exact revenge against Ukraine for it having launched an audacious nationwide raid on Russian airbases using smuggled suicide drones launched adjacent to their targets, circumventing air defence.

It also illustrates the degree to which the production of drones have intensified: in November 2024 the largest drone strike of the war to that point involved just 188 drones, fewer than half deployed last night.