Poland today backed down from its earlier claim that a drone was likely had violated its airspace during a Russian attack in Ukraine in August, after a 10-day analysis and search of the object did not lead to results, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The NATO member state is on high alert for possible incursions into its airspace as a result of Russian attacks in neighboring Ukraine and the announcement that an object believed to be a drone was detected by radar on the 26 August, raised questions about why he wasn't ousted.
The army said at the time that due to weather conditions it was not possible to identify the object with complete accuracy, meaning that shooting it down would carry the risk of hitting a civilian target, such as a light aircraft.
However, after a thorough search failed to turn up any traces of a Russian drone, the head of the Polish Armed Forces' Operational Command, General Maciej Klish, said he believed the country's airspace had not been violated.
"As a result of the analytical actions taken, at the moment I can state with a very high degree of certainty that there was no violation of the airspace of the Republic of Poland on August 26," he told reporters.
However, he added that there is a possibility of repeated violations of the country's airspace during Russian attacks on Ukraine.
In 2022, a stray Ukrainian missile struck a Polish village in the south of the country and killed two people, Reuters recalls. In December 2023, Poland said a Russian missile had entered its airspace. In April 2023, a military site was discovered in a forest near the city of Bydgoszcz in the northern part of the country. It was later reported that it was a Russian missile.
In March of this year, Poland said that Russia had violated its airspace with a cruise missile fired at targets in western Ukraine.