War in Ukraine: Poland claims Russian missile entered its airspace

An incident with a hint of déjà vu. NATO member Poland said on Friday that an unidentified flying object entered its airspace from neighboring Ukraine and then left it. According to the army, it was a Russian missile.

“Everything indicates that a Russian missile penetrated Polish airspace. We spotted it using radar. He immediately left this area in the direction of Ukraine, said the Chief of Staff of the Polish Army, General Wieslaw Kukula. This happened “in the morning” and “all available forces and means were involved,” the first press release from the operational command says.

“Last night there was intense shelling of Ukrainian territory, so this incident may well be related to that,” Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, a spokesman for the Armed Forces Operational Command, told TVN24. The report said the airspace violation occurred near the border town of Zamosc.

Rocket crash at the end of 2022

In November 2022, a Ukrainian rocket fell on the Polish village of Przewodow near the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians.

The explosion at the site of a grain drying complex near a school, about six kilometers from the border with Ukraine, occurred as Russia carried out massive attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure throughout Ukraine.

Even before its origin was known, the rocket’s fall on a Polish village raised fears that NATO would be drawn into conflict by a major escalation of the war in Ukraine, where Poland would be protected by collective defense obligations from the Atlantic Alliance.