A Russian missile crashed in Poland on Thursday during an overnight assault on neighboring Ukraine, NATO said, an event that could risk bringing Russia closer to direct confrontation with the Western military alliance, to which Poland belongs.
Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, said the incident was a “violation of Poland’s airspace by a Russian missile” and vowed to strengthen alliance defenses.
“This incident is yet another reckless act by Russia and a dangerous consequence of its war against Ukraine,” Mr. Rutte said in a social media post Thursday.
A NATO spokesman, Col. Martin O’Donnell, said in a statement that the “Russian missile of currently unknown type” was “one of many missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine overnight.”
The missile — which the Polish authorities originally called an “unidentified object” — struck a field in southeastern Poland, causing no injuries. On Thursday morning, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland told an emergency meeting that the missile was likely Russian, that it was carrying explosives and that it caused a 32-foot diameter crater, indicating “that this was a very serious matter.”
But he stopped short of directly blaming Russia for launching it.
“Politically, it always has great significance and speculation as to whether it was Russian or Ukrainian,” Mr. Tusk said at a news briefing Thursday afternoon, adding that an investigation was ongoing.
He said the missile was one of two that crossed into the country’s airspace during Russia’s overnight attacks on Ukraine. The other turned away after a brief incursion, he said, and in both cases, “there’s no reason to believe the target was Poland.”
Poland has been struck at least once before by a missile, with one falling on its territory in 2022, killing two people. Initial fears at the time that the impact was a wayward Russian strike heightened tensions and demands for NATO intervention. But it quickly became apparent that the projectile was an air defense missile that Ukraine had launched that had accidentally landed in Poland.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said on social media that a Russian cruise missile had crossed into Poland, but he did not specify whether the weapon had hit anything.
There was no immediate comment from Russia about Thursday’s missile.
As the largest NATO ally on Ukraine’s border, Poland has both been both one of Kyiv’s strongest supporters in its four-year war with Russia and suffered some of the most collateral damage. Russian drones have pulsed its airspace and fallen onto its territory, and it has been the target of sabotage and hybrid attacks that Polish prosecutors have linked to Moscow.
Colonel O’Donnell said that NATO fighter jets and other aircraft had been scrambled to intercept Thursday’s missile, and that the alliance’s top military commander, Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich of the U.S. Air Force, had spoken with Poland’s defense minister afterward to discuss possible responses.
It is not clear what those might entail, and NATO officials would not discuss whether Poland had asked for official consultation with the entire alliance on how best to protect its territory.
General Grynkewich “underlined that NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to defend NATO territory,” Col. O’Donnell said.
The missile crashed just 31 miles south of where Mr. Tusk had met hours earlier with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
Mr. Tusk, who traveled to the crater site to inspect the damage, said it was “an unusual coincidence” that the missile had struck so close to the meeting.
“We were ready to shoot down this missile if it continued its flight,” Mr. Tusk said.
He had originally identified the missile as ballistic, but later said it was a cruise missile.
In a statement, Poland’s military said it had been monitoring at least a dozen Russian missiles flying over western Ukraine overnight, including what was described as “an object” that approached the Polish border around 3:29 a.m. local time but then changed its direction and headed east.
Around 10 minutes later, the military statement said, an unidentified object was detected in Polish airspace. Before an F-16 fighter jet that was scrambled could intercept it, however, the object disappeared from radar. The Polish authorities sent a helicopter crew to investigate and found what the military statement called “the probable crash site of the object” near the village of Tarnawa Kolonia, in the southeastern Lublin province.
Poland’s defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, said on social media Thursday morning that it remained unclear what the object was or from where it originated. He called the incident “an extremely tough night for our air defense, observation and threat detection systems.”
“Clarification is now underway regarding what type of object fell in the vicinity of the town of Tarnawa Kolonia,” he said.
The Ukrainian authorities used the event to press again for more deliveries of Western air defense systems to Ukraine, saying they could help defend European countries from Russian attacks.
“This is yet another clear demonstration that strengthening Ukraine’s air defense now is urgent and serves as a guarantee for the protection of the entire Euro-Atlantic community,” Mr. Sybiha said on social media.
Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting from Warsaw.
The post NATO Says Russian Missile Hit Poland During Ukraine Attack appeared first on New York Times.
