Poland says Russian missile violated airspace, summons diplomat

A Russian missile entered Polish airspace on Friday morning, according to the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces. The incident came after Ukraine reported a major Russian airstrike on several cities across Ukraine overnight.

three times the name of the russia invasion without summoning the foreign diplomat image 1 — General Wieslaw Kukula, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, speaks during a press conference on the incident on December 29, 2023. Photo: AP

“On Friday at 7:12 local time, from the direction of the border with Ukraine, an object violated Polish airspace and left Polish territory in less than three minutes,” the Polish General Staff wrote on the social network X.

"We identified it as a Russian guided missile. During that time, the missile's trajectory was tracked by both Polish and allied radar systems. Air defense systems were on alert."

In response to the situation, "F-16 fighter jets, two Polish and two American, were deployed from bases in Poland...", according to the Polish Armed Forces' Operations Command.

Russia's charge d'affaires in Warsaw, Andrei Ordash, said Poland had provided no evidence of a border violation, RIA Novosti news agency reported. "I received a letter with an unfounded claim that on the morning of December 29 an aerial object violated Polish airspace, which Polish experts identified as a Russian guided missile," he said.

“No evidence was produced. My request for written evidence of what was in the letter was denied,” Mr Ordash added.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski said that Poland would react quickly if such an incident were to recur. “I made it clear to the chargé d’affaires that a repeat of such attempts would be met with a stronger reaction from the Republic of Poland,” Bartoszewski said, according to PAP.

“If a missile had flown a little deeper into Polish territory, it would have been shot down,” Mr Bartoszewski was quoted as saying by PAP.

The missile flew 40 kilometers into Poland, said General Maciej Klisz, the operational commander of the Polish armed forces. Poland's new Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with military and security chiefs around noon on Friday to discuss the incident.

In November 2022, a stray Ukrainian missile fell near the village of Przewodow in southern Poland, killing two people and raising concerns at the time that fighting in Ukraine would spill over the border.

In April, a military object was found in a forest near the village of Zamosc near the northern Polish city of Bydgoszcz. It was later believed to be a Russian missile.

Huy Hoang (according to Reuters, AP)

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