Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said the operational commander and an F-16 pilot had authority to make that call, but the missile posed no such danger and struck open ground near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia, in eastern Poland.
He told MPs that ground-based air defences were placed on highest alert shortly before 1:30 a.m. local time on Thursday, after reports of a large-scale Russian missile barrage against Ukraine.
Two F-16s scrambled from Łask air base some twenty minutes later to help secure the border.
Around 20 missiles approached Polish territory during the attack.
Most struck targets in Ukraine, including Lviv.
One turned back just short of the border; another crossed it, prompting one of the F-16s to give chase.
Kosiniak-Kamysz explained that the rules on shooting down objects in Polish airspace differ in wartime and peacetime, and noted a similar decision was taken last September when Russian drones entered Polish airspace.
He said Poland was continuing a long-term, roughly PLN 200-billion (EUR 46 billion) modernisation of its air defence system, adding that the process "takes time" but has been carried on by successive governments.
The minister added that the operational command issued its first statement on the incident at 2:16 a.m., with a fuller one confirming the missile's incursion following just after 7:00 a.m.
Also, he rejected criticism from opposition lawmakers, arguing the state's response had worked "100 times better" than during two earlier incidents: one near Przewodów in November 2022, and another near Bydgoszcz, where a missile that fell in December 2022 was only found months later by a member of the public.
Missile identified as Russian-made Kh-101
Prosecutors in Lublin, who are investigating the incursion, said forensic examination of debris and the impact site had allowed them to confirm the object was a Kh-101 missile.
Prosecution spokesman Marcin Kozak told a news conference the missile was manufactured in the second quarter of this year at a plant in Russia's Moscow region, and that a specialist from Ukraine took part in the on-site examination.
Investigators had earlier described a crater roughly 10 metres wide and 5 metres deep at the impact site, from which fragments and soil samples were collected.
The inquiry, being carried out by the prosecution service's military affairs division, is examining the airspace violation and the endangering of air traffic.
No one was injured and no property was damaged in the strike.
(ał)
Source: PAP