A crater five to six meters wide and 50 centimeters deep was formed following this explosion, the origin of which must be determined by the Polish authorities.
The Minister of Defense of Poland denounced this Wednesday, August 20, a «provocation» From Russia, after the fall and the explosion during the night of a Russian drone in a field in the east of the country, which has not made a victim.
“Once again, we are faced with a provocation of the Russian Federation, with a Russian drone”a déclaré à la prese wladyslaw kosiniak-kamysz.
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Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski denounced “A new violation of our airspace from the east”. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will protest the author of this violation”he said on X.
Polish police said in the morning of being informed of a «explosion» In a cornfield located a hundred kilometers from Warsaw and a comparable distance from the borders with Ukraine and the Belarus. The explosion made no victim, according to the same source.
The object identified as a drone
On site, a “Object which, according to first estimates, could be an element of an old propeller engine”was found, said the Polish army on X, adding that“No violation of Polish airspace was recorded last night”.
Questioned by a journalist if it was a military drone, Grzegorz Trusiewicz, regional prosecutor of Lublin, in eastern Poland, told the press that “According to preliminary data, there is a very high probability” Whether it is such a device. He also excluded the possibility of being a civilian drone or smuggling, hypotheses mentioned earlier by the Polish defense minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamsz.
When asked if it was a «drone suicide»the prosecutor did not confirm this assertion. He added that an expert in military armaments is sent to the site and could be able to determine the precise type of machine.
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The unknown origin, Russia strongly suspected
The Polish media, citing sources at the Ministry of Defense, believe that it could be a version of a Russian drone Gerbera, a type of device usually used as a lure in Russian strikes against Ukraine. A drone of the same type was found in early August in Lithuania, pushing Vilnius to ask NATO to take “Immediate measurements” To strengthen its air defense.
In 2023, Poland had announced that a Russian missile had crossed its airspace by flying over its border with Ukraine, when Russian forces inflicted drone and missile strikes on this country. In November 2022, a Ukrainian anti -aircraft defense missile fell into the Polish village in Przewodow, near the border, causing the death of two civilians.
Polish authorities actively investigate the origins of the incident, with military police deploying a 3D scanner to help rebuild the site, the prosecutor said. Earlier, the Minister of Defense Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said: “We cannot exclude any of these hypotheses related to a Russian drone, a Belarusian drone, a smuggling drone or an act of sabotage in the territory of the Republic of Poland”for TVP World.