A missile that landed in a field near the village of Tarnawa Kolonia in eastern Poland came down crashing into the heart of the country's countryside early Thursday morning, and Polish leaders are calling it almost certainly a Russian Kh‑101 cruise missile that was armed, chain-reaction rumblings have landed a field only 92 km (57 mi) from the Ukrainian border.
The explosion left a 10‑metre wide crater and the bullet‑pointed hillside a short distance from an area that has been under heavy Russian air attacks for the past week. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who had just held a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Lublin, visited the wreckage, noting that the “majority of recovered fragments points to a Russian Kh‑101 missile.”
No casualties were reported in the crash, a fact Tusk insisted, but he stressed that the country was prepared “to shoot it down if it had continued its flight.” This stance comes after NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Gen Alexus G Grynkewich, said the alliance would take “all necessary measures to defend NATO territory.”
Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak‑Kamysz added that around 20 objects were seen around Polish airspace overnight and that pyrotechnical analysis was being carried out. Ukrainian acting Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha had earlier confirmed that a Russian Kh‑101 had crossed into Poland as part of a massive strike against Ukraine.
The incident is one among a series of Russian drones and missiles that have landed in Poland since the arbitration of Russia’s war in Ukraine began in February 2022; two Polish farmers were killed in a missile that fell beyond the border in November 2022, though that was thought to be a Ukrainian air‑defence missile in response to Russian activity. The Polish military identified this latest event at 03:40 local time, launching an F‑16 fighter to intercept the object before it disappeared from radar minutes later. Air‑raid sirens rang in the region, creating a heightened sense of tension that was quickly resolved after an hour.
