There is a “very high probability” that no violation of Polish airspace by a drone took place last week, the Polish army acknowledged on Thursday.
On August 26, Warsaw declared that a flying object, probably a Shahed drone of Iranian origin, had intruded into the NATO nation’s airspace after deadly Russian strikes battered neighbour Ukraine.
At the time, General Maciej Klisz said that the entry of an unidentified object into Polish territory from Ukraine had been “confirmed by at least three radiolocation stations” — a statement he has since revised.
“I conclude at this stage, and this with a very high probability, that there was no violation of the airspace of the Republic of Poland on August 26,” Klisz, the Operational Commander of the Armed Forces General said.
The army had launched a ground search for the aircraft which ended on Wednesday without result.
On Thursday, Klisz said the army would further analyse its radar system algorithms “in order to optimise them, if necessary, and avoid ambiguous images in the future”.
In the past, Poland has recorded at least two cases of its airspace being violated by Russian missiles or drones attacking Ukraine, most recently in December.
In November 2022, two people were killed when a Ukrainian air-defence missile fell on the Polish village of Przewodow near the Ukrainian border.
In an interview with the Financial Times published on Monday, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that Warsaw should have the right to shoot down Russian missiles targeting Ukraine before they enter Polish airspace despite NATO opposition.
“Membership in NATO does not trump each country’s responsibility for the protection of its own airspace — it’s our own constitutional duty,” Sikorski told the FT.
Warsaw’s top diplomat argued downing “hostile missiles” bound for Poland’s territory was “legitimate self-defence because once they do cross into our airspace, the risk of debris injuring someone is significant”.
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