Poland summons Russian envoy after alleged airspace violation
POLAND is summoning the Russian ambassador to explain what it said was a violation of its airspace by a Russian cruise missile early on Sunday morning, Poland’s PAP agency has reported.
Further action from Poland depends on the information provided by the ambassador, PAP quoted Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna as saying.
The cruise missile was over Polish territory for 39 seconds, Szejna told broadcaster Polsat TV, adding that if the airspace violation had lasted longer, it would have been shot down.
Polish officials say airspace was violated at 4:23am by a cruise missile launched by a Russian long-range aircraft and targeting towns in western Ukraine.
The General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces wrote on the X, formerly Twitter, that a violation of Polish airspace took place at 4:23 am (0323 GMT) on Sunday when a cruise missile launched by a long-range Russian aircraft entered Polish airspace near the town of Oserdów for 39 seconds.
The target of the attacks were cities in western Ukraine, it said.
Its flight was monitored by military radar systems during its entire trajectory, the statement added.
Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said that the Russian flying object entered Polish territory at a depth of 1,000 to 2,000 metres. The incident is said to have taken place in Polish airspace near the village of Oserdow, in the south-eastern Lublin province.
It’s not the first time Russia’s war in Ukraine has crossed the European Union’s external border, and the Polish military previously detected the violation of its airspace by a Russian missile at the end of December.
In November 2022, a missile hit a Polish village on the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians. West officials assumed that it was a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile that had been deployed in defence against Russian attacks.