A military drone was the object that crashed and exploded in a cornfield in eastern Poland, according to preliminary investigation results, Polish prosecutors confirmed on Wednesday.
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) did not carry a warhead but contained a small amount of explosives, suggesting it was most likely used as a decoy, Poland’s state news agency PAP reported, citing a source close to the Ministry of Defense.
Incident Details
- The drone exploded after impact in the village of Osiny, located in Lublin province, near the border with Ukraine.
- The blast shattered windows on several houses, though no injuries were reported.
- Police recovered charred fragments of metal and plastic at the scene.
- Cornfields around the crash site were burned within a radius of 8–10 meters.
Poland’s High Alert
Poland has maintained a state of heightened alert regarding unidentified objects entering its airspace since 2022, when a stray Ukrainian missile struck the village of Przewodów, killing two people.
Regional prosecutor Grzegorz Trusiewicz said the drone was most likely damaged by explosives before the crash.
Radar and Defense Concerns
Poland’s Operational Command of the Armed Forces stated that radar systems had not detected any objects entering Polish airspace from Ukraine or Belarus prior to the incident.
However, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz acknowledged that radar does not always detect every object. He outlined three possible scenarios:
- A Belarusian or Russian drone
- A drone used for smuggling
- An act of sabotage carried out inside Polish territory
“None of these possibilities should be excluded,” he emphasized.
Cross-Border Alarms in Ukraine
Around the same time, air raid sirens were activated for about an hour in Ukraine’s Volyn and Lviv regions, just across the border. The Ukrainian military issued alerts on Telegram, though local governors later confirmed that no airstrikes occurred.
