Polish PM says object that left crater in field likely Russian missile
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that an object that created a 10-meter-wide crater near the village of Tarnawa Kolonia was probably a Russian missile. No casualties were reported, but the incident is considered serious.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday that an object that crashed into a field in eastern Poland in the early hours was likely a Russian missile. The unidentified object left a 10-meter-wide (33-foot) crater a short distance from the village of Tarnawa Kolonia, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border with Ukraine, during a Russian attack on the city of Lviv.
"All indications are that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% certain about the type of missile and who launched it," Tusk said during a specially convened meeting in nearby Lublin.
Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said earlier on Thursday that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile had "crossed into Poland as part of Russia's massive strike against Ukraine, violating NATO airspace."
Tusk said he was in contact with fellow European leaders before heading to the scene of Thursday's incident. There were no reports of casualties, he said, but it was being treated as serious.
A number of Russian drones and one unarmed Russian missile have landed in Poland since Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine began in February 2022. In November 2022, two Polish farmers were killed by a missile that landed just over the border from Ukraine, but that was believed to have been a Ukrainian air defense missile responding to a Russian attack.
Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said about 20 objects were seen close to Polish airspace overnight and pyrotechnical analysis was being carried out to determine the identity of the object that fell near Tarnawa Kolonia.
Poland's military detected the object at about 03:40 on Thursday (01:40 GMT) and sent an F-16 fighter jet to intercept it before it disappeared minutes later from radar systems. A military helicopter was then sent to search the area.
Air raid sirens blared in Lublin and Krasnystaw further to the south-east because of the Russian airstrikes that killed eight people in neighboring Ukraine. Residents in Tarnawa Kolonia reported hearing a loud bang at about 04:00 and police found the crash site about an hour later.
The Polish leader had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Lublin the previous evening as Zelensky was returning from talks with US President Donald Trump.
