Poland protests to Russian ambassador over missile incursion

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Friday that the ambassador had been summoned after Warsaw confirmed that the projectile, which landed in the village of Tarnawa Kolonia in the Lublin region on Thursday, was a Russian Kh-101 missile. No casualties or injuries have been reported.

An investigation into the incident suggested that Russia’s weapon stockpiles may be running low as it continues to launch nightly barrages of drones and missiles at Ukraine while its more than four-year war drags on.

“The ambassador was informed of our unequivocal condemnation of hostile actions directed against the security of a sovereign state and its citizens,” Maciej Wewior, spokesman for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told journalists.

“We emphasised that any escalation at the border of the European Union and the North Atlantic alliance [NATO] is unacceptable,” he added, underlining that the root of the incident was “the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation”.

The incident marked the latest in a series of incursions on NATO’s eastern flank. Drones and missiles intruding on the territory and airspace of Poland, Romania and the Baltic states have fuelled fears that the war in Ukraine may spill over the alliance’s borders.

NATO and European leaders have been swift to support Poland and condemn Russia for the missile.

Poland has identified the missile as part of an attack that killed at least eight civilians in Ukraine and injured more than 50.

Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz reported that Warsaw had established that 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 social media. “It confirms reports that Russian wartime stockpiles have been depleted.”

An expert from Ukraine who arrived at the scene “did not have the slightest doubt” about the origins or model of the missile, Marcin Kozak, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Lublin, said.

“I will point out that this type of missile is used exclusively by Russian strategic aviation,” Wewior noted.