The incursion and downing of around twenty Russian drones in Polish airspace last September marked one of the points of greatest recent tension between NATO allies and Moscow. Warsaw denounced that it was “an unprecedented violation” and even the Polish president warned his citizens that they had to “be prepared for a war.”
The main damage from the incident was recorded in a house in the pIll-Wola pelloin the eastern province of Lublin. One of the drones, as initially reported, hit the roof of the building and the shrapnel also hit a parked car, although there were no injuries.
However, Poland has now recognized that It was not a Russian drone that hit the housebut a missile fired from a fighter jet of its Air Force that was trying to shoot down one of the unmanned devices launched by the Russian Army against Ukraine.
Another image of the Wyryki house hit by a Polish fighter projectile.
Reuters
This has been recognized by the teniente general Maciej Kliszoperational commander of the Polish Armed Forces. In an interview published this Friday in the newspaper Republicthe military also confirmed that they were a total of twenty-three drones those who crossed the border into Polish airspace on the night of September 9, despite the fact that Warsaw initially reported 19 incursions to the UN Security Council.
In his review of events, the Polish commander stated that “several hundred objects were heading west” from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, of which “twenty-three crossed the Polish border.”
When referring to the house in the town of Wyryki, on whose roof a projectile hit, causing no personal injury, the soldier explained, according to the agency Efethat “the preliminary report on the incident was issued too soon, too hastily“.
When evaluating what happened, General Klisz blamed the confusion that was being experienced at that time the “incorrect information” that was spreadwith drone fragments that were counted as complete devices and even a civil model airplane that was taken for a Russian drone.
Regarding the military response, Klisz confirmed in the interview that weapons were fired “several times” against drones that entered Polish airspace, “exclusively from aircraft”, adding that this is because “in peacetime, it is easier for a pilot to comply with the legal requirements to open fire than for the crew of a ground-based anti-aircraft system.”
These events and the Západ military maneuvers pushed the Polish Government to decree the closure of the border with Belarus. The Minister of the Interior reported this Friday that the border crossings at Bobrowniki will reopen on November 17 and vehicles and trucks registered in the European Union and under the EFTA treaty will be able to pass through.