Poland confirms Russian cruise missile entered its airspace

Poland said on Friday that the projectile that crashed in the country's east a day earlier was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile manufactured this year, supporting assessments that Moscow is drawing on newly produced weapons to strike Ukraine as its wartime stockpiles shrink.

The site of Thursday's missile incident near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in Poland's eastern Lubelskie region.

Photo: PAP/Wojtek Jargiło

Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said investigators had determined the missile was produced near Moscow in the second quarter of this year.

"This means that Russia is using newly produced missiles to strike Ukraine," he wrote on X.

"It confirms reports that Russia's wartime stockpiles have been depleted," he added.

Dzięki pracy ekspertów https://t.co/eSxf3rlW0F. Żandarmerii Wojskowej wiemy coraz wiecej na temat rakiety Ch 101, której fragmenty od wczoraj intensywnie badają nasi specjaliści.

‼️Rakieta została zbudowana w drugim kwartale tego roku w fabryce niedaleko Moskwy.
Oznacza to, że…

— Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz (@KosiniakKamysz) July 31, 2026

Poland summoned the Russian ambassador on Friday and handed him a diplomatic protest note over the incident, foreign ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór said.

The missile entered Polish airspace during a large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine on Thursday before crashing in an uninhabited area in eastern Poland. No one was injured.

The incident was the latest in a series of Russian missile and drone incursions near or into NATO airspace that have heightened concerns about the war in Ukraine spilling beyond the alliance's eastern flank, the Reuters news agency reported.

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Source: Reuters, IAR, PAP, polskieradio24.pl