(Warsaw) Poland, a NATO member, denounced on Friday a “violation” of its airspace “by a cruise missile”, calling on Russia to “immediately cease this type of operation”.
The Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian Federation’s charge d’affaires in Poland on Friday evening. In the note given to him, Warsaw demanded “to explain the incident of violation of the airspace of the Republic of Poland by a cruise missile and to immediately cease this type of operations”, according to a press release of the ministry.
Warsaw had previously claimed that a Russian missile entered its airspace on Friday morning before leaving in the direction of Ukraine, the target of a deadly wave of Russian strikes.
“Everything indicates that a Russian missile penetrated Polish airspace. We spotted it using radar. He left this space” a few minutes later, in the direction of Ukraine, the head of the General Staff of the Polish army, General Wieslaw Kukula, declared to the press.
“We have radar confirmations, both nationally and from allies,” he added.
The missile flew over Polish airspace for three minutes, over around forty kilometers, said Maciej Klisz, operational commander of the Polish army.
“We sent our forces there, planes to intercept it and shoot it down if necessary, but the time (of the flyover) and the way it maneuvered […] made it impossible and allowed the missile to leave Polish territory,” General Klisz further declared.
Following a large wave of strikes against Ukraine, Poland’s air defense system was put on alert overnight from Thursday to Friday, he said.
A ground search was launched at the location where the missile’s radio signal was lost, army officials said.
After the incident, Polish civil and military authorities held emergency meetings, and President Andrzej Duda spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“NATO stands in solidarity with our precious ally, it is monitoring the situation. We will stay in touch as the facts become established. NATO remains vigilant,” Stoltenberg said on X (former Twitter).
In November 2022, a Ukrainian missile fell on the Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians.
The explosion, at the site of a grain drying facility near a school, about six kilometers from the Ukrainian border, took place as Russia carried out massive strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in the the entire territory of Ukraine.
Before its origin was identified, the missile’s fall on the Polish village had raised fears that NATO would be drawn into the conflict in a major escalation of the war in Ukraine, with Poland protected by a collective defense commitment from the Atlantic Alliance.