OSINY: A Russian drone crashed in a field in eastern Poland, according to early findings, Polish officials said on Wednesday (Aug 20), in an incident the nation’s defence minister described as a provocation.
The drone hit and scorched a cornfield in the village of Osiny in the eastern Lublin province overnight, just over 100km from the Ukrainian border.
Poland has been on high alert for objects entering its airspace since a stray Ukrainian missile struck a southern Polish village in 2022, killing two people.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Pawel Wronski spoke to Reuters about the findings so far. Some experts have suggested that a Russian version of the Shahed drone developed by Iran was involved in the latest incident.
General Dariusz Malinowski said the drone appeared to be a decoy which was designed to self-destruct. He said it had a Chinese engine.
“A PROVOCATION BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION”
Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, who also serves as defence minister, said the incident bore similarities to cases in which Russian drones flew into Lithuania and Romania, and the timing could be linked to ongoing discussion to try and end the war in Ukraine.
“Once again, we are dealing with a provocation by the Russian Federation, with a Russian drone. We are dealing with it in a crucial moment, when discussions about peace (in Ukraine) are underway,” he told journalists.
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on X his ministry would issue a protest against the airspace violation but did not name the perpetrator.
“Another violation of our airspace from the East confirms that Poland’s most important mission towards NATO is the defence of our own territory.”
The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
BLAST SHATTERED WINDOWS, NO INJURIES
US President Donald Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a group of European allies in the White House on Monday, following his meeting on Friday in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The blast shattered windows in several homes, but nobody was injured, national news agency PAP reported.
Police said they found burnt metal and plastic debris at the site and that corn had been burnt in an area of 8-10m diameter around the spot where the object fell.
“I was sitting in my room at night, around midnight, maybe, and I heard something just bang,” local resident Pawel Sudowski told local news website Lukow.tv. “It exploded so loudly that the whole house simply shook.”
Air raid sirens rang out for about an hour over the border in Ukraine’s Volyn and Lviv regions from around midnight local time (2100 GMT), according to messages from its military posted on Telegram.
There were no reports of air attacks in those regions, their governors said.
Since Russia’s full-scale invation of Ukraine more than three years ago, there have been a number of intrusions into Polish airspace raising concern in the wider European Union and NATO.
