Polish authorities confirm the brief and stealthy passage of a Russian missile over Poland. It remains to be determined whether this was an incident or a show of force.
Navigation error or deliberate aggression? The Polish Defense Forces said an unknown object entered the country’s airspace on Friday morning from Ukraine and then disappeared from radar.
“Everything indicates that a Russian missile penetrated Polish airspace. It was monitored by our radars and left the airspace. We have confirmation of this on the radars and from the allies” of NATO, said the Polish defense chief.
The Polish Defense Forces said the object penetrated about 40 kilometers into its airspace and left it after less than three minutes. The defense forces said their and NATO radars confirmed the object had left Polish airspace.
General Kukula said steps had been taken to verify these results and eliminate the possibility of a technical error.
There was no comment from Russian officials.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on X that he had spoken with the Polish president about “the missile incident” and said NATO was vigilant and monitoring the situation “as the facts are established.”
It was not immediately clear where the object had disappeared from radar or in which direction it was heading. Troops were mobilized to identify and find him. No explosions or casualties were immediately reported.
The governor of Lublin province in eastern Poland, Krzysztof Komorski, told the Onet news portal that the object appeared on radars near the town of Hrubieszow, where there is a border crossing with Ukraine. The Polish governor said he had no information indicating he had landed in Lublin province.
Poland’s border with Ukraine is also the border of the European Union and NATO with Ukraine.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk convened a meeting with the Minister of Defense, military commanders and heads of national security bodies, followed by a meeting of the National Security Office with President Andrzej Duda, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Polish.
President Duda said through an aide that there was no “no threat at the moment” and that there was nothing to suggest that “anything bad” should be expected.
“The most important thing is that no one was injured”, said aide Grazyna Ignaczak-Bandych.
Ukrainian officials said on Friday that Russia launched more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets overnight in what an Air Force official called largest aerial bombardment since the invasion large-scale attack on Ukraine by Russia in February 2022.
“As a result of such massive attacks, this can happen. The enemy is attacking our border territories, including in the west. This is another signal for our partners to strengthen Ukrainian air defense,” said the national television Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, about the incident.
This is not the first time that an unauthorized object has entered Polish airspace from Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of Russia. In November 2022, two men were killed when a missile hit the village of Przewodow, a few kilometers from the border. Western officials said they believed a Ukrainian air defense missile had gone astray.