NATO spokesperson Fara Dahlallah described Russia’s actions as “irresponsible and dangerous” after Polish authorities said that a Russian drone had probably entered Polish airspace during the massive shelling of Ukraine on 26 August. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to RMF24.
Early on Monday morning, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure and regions near the border with Poland. During the attack, radar detected an object that entered Polish airspace to a depth of approximately 25 km. According to the operational commander, General Maciej Klisz, and the command’s spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, the object stayed over Poland for 33 minutes before disappearing from radar.
The Polish army was ready to shoot down the unidentified aircraft, but it was not possible to confirm what kind of unit it was. The military unofficially claims that it was most likely a Russian Shahed kamikaze drone. According to the Polish army, the border crossing took place at 6:43 a.m., and the object’s signal was lost at 7:16 a.m.
At the moment, there are no reports of damage on the ground. The Polish military is in contact with local authorities, police and services working on the site, but no anomalies or damage have been detected. According to Lieutenant Colonel Goryshevsky, the object could have crashed into a dense forest or descended to such an altitude that it was no longer visible on radar.
Precedents for violations of Polish airspace
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the wreckage of Russian drones and missiles has been repeatedly found on the territories of allied countries. In November 2022, a shell fell in the village of Przewodów in the Lubelskie Voivodeship of Poland, killing two people. In December of the same year, a Russian X-55 missile was discovered in a forest near Bydgoszcz, which was only discovered in April 2023.
Incidents like these are of great concern to NATO Allies.
As Fara Dahlallah stressed, “unless we have information that indicates that this was a direct attack by Russia on its allies, these actions are irresponsible and potentially dangerous.”
Missile attack on Ukraine on 26 August: what we know
Another massive, combined missile and drone attack on Ukraine began at around 3:00 a.m. with an attack by numerous attack drones. Up to a dozen of these drones (such as the Shahed) approached Kyiv from different directions. However, the air defence forces and means destroyed all the enemy drones on the outskirts of the city.
And at around 5:00, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that the enemy had taken 11 Tu-95MS strategic bombers into the sky. The Ukrainian Navy recorded the launch of 4 Kalibr missile carriers, with a total volley of up to 28 missiles. Subsequently, the enemy took to the skies 6 Tu-22m3 strategic bombers, followed by 3 MiG-31Ks with Kinzhal missiles. This arsenal was supplemented by ballistic missile launches from Crimea and the western regions of Russia.
According to preliminary information, the main target of the complex, combined attack of all these numerous cruise, ballistic, aerial ballistic missiles and attack drones was infrastructure.
The Russian Armed Forces used
- x-101/55 cruise missiles from 6 Tu-95s (Saratov region and the Caspian region);
- zm14 Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea;
- allegedly guided aircraft missiles of various types from the Azov Sea, Sumy and Belgorod regions;
- x-22 supersonic cruise missiles from 6 Tu-22m3 aircraft from the territory of Kursk region of the Russian Federation;
- 9m723 Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles;
- x-47m2 supersonic ballistic missiles of the Kinzhal complex from the Lipetsk region of the Russian Federation;
- UAVs of the Shahed and Gerbera types.
Lutsk, Stryi, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and other settlements were under attack