A Russian cruise missile briefly entered Polish airspace early Friday and flew about 40 kilometers (25 miles) over Warsaw's territory, the country's senior military officials said.
This came during a large-scale Russian airstrike on Ukraine, which also targeted areas in the west of the country near the border with Poland, including the city of Lviv.
The Polish military had initially only reported the entry of an unknown object into its airspace, without saying what it was or what had happened to it.
“Everything indicates that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace… It also left our airspace,” General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, told reporters later on Friday.
Warsaw summons the Russian chargé d'affaires
Later on Friday, Poland called the Russian chargé d'affaires and demanded an explanation of the violation.
Poland's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it also called for an immediate stop to such activities.
After the talks, Russia's chargé d'affaires in Warsaw was quoted as saying that Poland had provided no evidence of a border violation by a Russian missile.
“I was handed a note containing an unfounded claim that allegedly on the morning of December 29 a flying object violated Polish airspace, which Polish specialists identified as a Russian guided missile,” RIA Novosti news agency quoted diplomat Andrei Ordash as saying.
“No evidence was presented. My request for documented evidence of the contents of the note was denied.”
What else did the military say?
Gen. Maciej Klisz, head of operations for the Polish Armed Forces, said the missile remained in the country's airspace for about three minutes and the military believed it had crossed back into Ukraine when it disappeared from radar.
“The entire flight route over Polish territory was monitored,” Klisz said. “At the moment the scenario I recommend is that the missile has left Polish airspace.”
He said no action was taken against the projectile.
“We sent our forces, fighter jets, to intercept it and shoot it down if necessary, but the duration and trajectory … made this impossible and allowed the missile to leave Polish territory,” Klisz said.
The military also conducted a ground search around the spot where it lost radar contact with the projectile to support its belief that it did not impact on Polish soil.
The National Security Council meets in Warsaw
Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said earlier on Friday that he was in contact with the president, prime minister and the military to clarify the details.
President Andrzej Duda's office also shared a picture of an emergency meeting between politicians and the military.
In November 2022, two people died in an explosion on the Polish border with Ukraine. In this case, it eventually turned out that a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile had gone missing.
msh/mm (AFP, dpa, Portal)