Polish General Staff considers Russian missile's violation of airspace to be deliberate

Wiesław Kukuła, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Poland, has stated that the incident of a Russian missile entering the airspace of Poland was "to a large extent a deliberate act".

Source: European Pravda with reference to Kukuła’s statement cited by the RMF FM radio station

Details: Kukuła explained at a briefing on 25 March that the Polish airspace was violated by a Russian Kh-101 missile with a programmable trajectory.

"Russian missiles have a relatively low precision so either circumstance is possible: the missile could have been deliberately programmed, or it could have just deviated from the programmed trajectory," Kukuła said.

The official believes that "targets moving on the border of two countries always create a very complicated situation in terms of their destruction, since if we had destroyed the missile, it could have led to undesirable actions by the other party".

"The same thing could happen if Ukraine were to attempt to destroy it with a missile. This missile may fall down on the Polish territory and cause certain consequences. So our current approach to this situation is, we choose to believe that it was to a large extent a deliberate act [on Russia’s part]," Kukuła said.

He added separately that Poland had informed NATO representatives about the incident, and "in a few hours I was informed that our reaction was exemplary, like our allies expected it to be".

Background: At 4:23 on the morning of 24 March, a Russian missile violated Polish airspace during a Russian missile attack on Ukraine. The missile reportedly entered Polish airspace near the village of Osierdów in the Lublin Voivodeship. It was there for 39 seconds.

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Minister of National Defence of Poland, stated that Poland would have downed the Russian missile, if there had been signs it was headed to a target in the Polish territory.

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