Investigators in Lublin have determined that a Russian-made Kh-101 cruise missile, carrying a substantial explosive payload, crashed near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia last Thursday, prosecutors said, as Poland's military accused Moscow of using the incident to spread disinformation and undermine public trust.
The missile, produced in the second quarter of 2026 at a plant in Russia's Moscow region, is the subject of a probe by the Military Affairs Department of the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Lublin, which is examining possible violations of Polish airspace and threats to air traffic. Polish officials said the missile would have been intercepted had it endangered populated areas.
The object first appeared on radar at 3:40 a.m., during a large-scale Russian air assault on western Ukraine, prompting the scramble of a Polish F-16. Contact was lost six minutes later, and the crash site was later traced to the area near Lublin.
Within hours, Russian state and propaganda media began circulating what Poland's General Staff called manipulative narratives about the episode, seizing on early gaps in official information.
"Russian media and propaganda channels used incomplete information, the absence of an official identification of the object, and discrepancies in initial reports to spread alternative, unconfirmed interpretations", the General Staff said in a statement on X.
Officials said the campaign pushed several competing claims: that the object was Ukrainian, that Polish air defenses had failed, and that the incident resulted from Polish-Ukrainian cooperation — with some accounts also making unfounded attempts to tie the event to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Lublin at the time. Such narratives, the General Staff said, were meant to "get ahead of official findings, impose competing versions of events, blur potential responsibility and weaken trust in Polish security institutions".
The military urged the public not to amplify unverified claims. "Stay calm. Do not speculate or share sensational headlines. Wait for official statements from the state administration, the services and the Polish Armed Forces", it said.
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Source: Polish Radio, PAP