A drone that crashed into a field in eastern Poland earlier this week most likely entered from the direction of Belarus, a regional prosecutor said on Thursday, in an incident that Poland’s defence minister described as a provocation.
The military drone struck a cornfield overnight on Tuesday in the Lublin region, scorching crops, shattering windows in nearby homes, and heightening security concerns as diplomatic efforts intensify to end the war in Ukraine.
“There is a very high probability … that the object probably came from Belarus,” regional prosecutor Grzegorz Trusiewicz told reporters. He did not confirm the model of the drone involved.
On Wednesday, a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Reuters that initial findings suggested the drone resembled a Russian version of the Shahed model, developed by Iran and widely used by Moscow in its war against Ukraine.
Neither the Belarusian nor Russian embassies in Warsaw immediately commented on the incident. Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has openly supported Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Earlier on Thursday, Poland’s Operational Command reported scrambling fighter jets in response to Russian missile strikes on western Ukraine but said no violation of Polish airspace had been detected.
The crash has fueled tensions in a region already on edge, with Polish officials warning that drone incursions risk destabilising NATO’s eastern flank.
Written By Rodney Mbua
