Unidentified object crashes in eastern Poland after Russian air attack on Ukraine

Polish authorities on Thursday were investigating the crash of an unidentified object in a field in eastern Poland after the military tracked it entering the country's airspace during a large-scale Russian air attack on neighbouring Ukraine.

Image:

Operational Command of Poland's Armed Forces

Police said officers responding to reports of a loud explosion found a crater about 10 metres wide and scattered fragments of an unidentified object in a field between the villages of Tarnawa-Kolonia and Tokary in the eastern Lubelskie region, about 2 kilometres from the nearest buildings.

The area was secured, and police said counterterrorism officers had been dispatched.

Military police, the Internal Security Agency (ABW), the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) and prosecutors were also notified, authorities said.

Earlier, the regional fire service said firefighters were securing the site after receiving reports of an explosion near the villages of Tarnawa-Kolonia and Turobin.

The discovery came hours after the Operational Command of Poland's Armed Forces said it had detected an unidentified airborne object over Polish territory during overnight Russian missile strikes on western Ukraine.

According to the military, the object was detected at 3:40 a.m. local time moving westward through Polish airspace.

An F-16 fighter jet was scrambled to intercept and identify it, but the object disappeared from radar screens at 3:46 a.m. before it could be positively identified, state news agency PAP reported.

A Mi-24 helicopter was then sent to verify the radar data and located what the military described as the probable impact site in an uninhabited area near Tarnawa Kolonia.

Ground search-and-rescue teams and other emergency services were dispatched to the scene, where security and investigative operations remained underway.

The Operational Command said Poland's air defence radar system had tracked at least a dozen missiles flying over western Ukraine overnight.

One of the missiles came within about 5 kilometres of the Polish border at 3:29 a.m. before turning east.

The military had activated Polish and allied aircraft overnight in response to long-range Russian aviation conducting strikes against Ukraine.

Air raid warning sirens were also activated in the regional capital Lublin and several other parts of the Lubelskie region because of the attacks on Ukraine. The alert was lifted after several minutes.

Authorities have not identified the object or said whether it was linked to the Russian strikes. The investigation was ongoing.

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Source: IAR, PAP, polskieradio24.pl