A Russian missile entered the airspace of a NATO country, Poland, this Friday before abandoning it towards Ukraine, the target of a lethal wave of Russian attacks, Polish authorities announced.
“Everything indicates that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace. We detected it through radar. It immediately left Polish airspace,” heading towards Ukraine, said the Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, General Wieslaw Kukula.
“We have radar confirmations, both nationally and from our allies,” he added, quoted by the French agency AFP.
The operational commander of the Polish army, General Maciej Klisz, said the missile flew over Polish airspace for three minutes, at a distance of about forty kilometers.
“We sent our forces and planes to intercept it and shoot it down if necessary, but time [de sobrevoo] and the way it maneuvered (…) made it impossible and allowed the missile to leave Polish territory,” he stated.
According to Klisz, the Polish air defense system was put on alert on Thursday night, following the wave of Russian attacks against Ukraine.
To avoid mistakes, ground searches were carried out at the location where the missile’s radio signal was lost, army officials said.
Following the incident, Polish civil and military authorities held emergency meetings and President Andrzej Duda held talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Poland is a member of NATO and the European Union (EU).
In November 2022, a Ukrainian missile fell in the Polish town of Przewodow, about six kilometers from the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians.
The explosion occurred at a time when Russia was carrying out massive attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure across the country.
Until the source was identified, the missile crash in the Polish village raised fears that NATO would become involved in the conflict, given that Poland is protected by the Atlantic Alliance’s collective defense commitment.
Russia today carried out the largest attack since it invaded Ukraine almost two years ago, causing 18 deaths and 132 injuries, according to an interim report.
Ukrainian authorities said Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones at targets across Ukraine in an attack that lasted 18 hours.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have achieved “all the objectives” planned in the intense attack launched at dawn.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis on the continent since World War II (1939-1945).
The number of civilian and military casualties is unknown, but several sources, including the UN, have warned that it will be significant.
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in the summer after receiving new weapons from its Western allies, but has already acknowledged that the results were modest.
Source: TSF
