Poland's Defence Minister commented on incident with allegedly Russian missile near Bydgoszcz
Mariusz Błaszczak, the Minister of Defence of Poland, stated that in December he did not receive a report about a missile that had entered Poland’s airspace and the fragments of which were recently found in the north of Poland, even though the military were tracking it and were trying to find it.
Source: Błaszczak at the briefing, as European Pravda reported, referring to the Polish media outlets RMF24 and Polsat
Details: Błaszczak reported that the Polish army knew about an "aerial object" on the day of the incident, but he did not receive any reports on the matter back then.
"Right after the information surfaced that an object found near Bydgoszcz may turn out to be a Russian missile, I initiated the inspection in the operative command, which is responsible for the protection of the border in the airspace of the country in accordance with the law about the protection of the homeland," Błaszczak said.
The inspection found out that on 16 December 2022, the Air Force of Poland was informed by the Ukrainian side that some object, likely a missile, was getting closer to the airspace of Poland. Then Poland got in contact with the Ukrainian and American sides and initiated corresponding NATO procedures, and Polish and American fighter jets took off in the air.
Polish radars detected an object.
Błaszczak stressed that all actions of the Polish military from the Air Operations Centre were correct, yet the operative commander, for some reason, has not reported about the incident, neither to the Minister nor to other governmental structures, though according to the instructions he was supposed to do so.
"The operational report for 16 December, which I received, contained information that there had been no violations of the airspace of Poland that day, which, as it turned out, was not true," Błaszczak said.
He confirmed that after the suspicions about an intruder missile, only a police patrol was sent to the presumed site of the fall; a search with helicopters had not been initiated until 19 December, territorial defence was not involved, and then the search got called off.
"At the same time, I strongly deny the information in the media that I refused to give an order to conduct a search for the object and send the members of the territorial defence to the site," the minister stated.
He added that the report on what procedures were conducted when the object was found will be submitted to the Prime Minister and the President of Poland, and all personnel decisions will be made afterwards.
Background: Earlier, the media, referring to sources, reported that, according to preliminary reports of the Technical Institute of the Polish Air Force, the fragments of the missile found near the city of Bydgoszcz are from the Russian Kh-55.
The Polish authorities have so far only officially confirmed the discovery of a "military aerial object". There has been no other commentary from Polish officials on the matter.
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