Object which exploded in eastern Poland likely decoy drone - MoD
An unidentified object which fell into a cornfield and exploded in the village of Osiny, in eastern Poland's Lubelskie province, is most likely a so-called decoy drone, according to a source at the Polish defence ministry (MoD).
The source specified that it was a military drone, but without a warhead and containing only a small amount of explosives, designed to engage anti-aircraft defence systems and divert them from actual combat drones.
On Wednesday morning, Marcin Jozwik from the police department in Osiny told PAP that police had received a report of an explosion in a local cornfield, shortly after 2am on Wednesday.
Police officers arrived at the site and found "burnt metal and plastic debris scattered over a radius of several dozen metres," he said.
The explosion shattered windows in several homes, but nobody was injured, Jozwik added.
He also said that the security services had been trying to determine the origin of the unidentified object.
As PAP later learned unofficially from sources close to the MoD, an analysis of the incident was underway but, as reported, according to the military's initial findings, no violation of Polish airspace occurred during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, meaning the object that fell near Osiny was most likely not a missile or a drone originating from beyond the eastern border.
Shortly afterwards, the information was confirmed by the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces (DORSZ) on the X platform.
"No violation of Polish airspace was recorded last night from either Ukraine or Belarus," the statement read.
"The information about the discovery of an object which, based on initial evaluations, could potentially be a fragment of an old propeller engine, was forwarded to the Air Operations Centre – Air Component Command," DORSZ said at first.
Later, Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said that object was most likely a drone that had crashed to the ground and that an analysis was underway to determine whether it was a military or one used for smuggling.
"And we should not rule out... acts of sabotage on the territory of the Republic of Poland," he added.
He also said that intensive operations by the police, military police, territorial defence forces and operational units were in progress to search and secure the entire area. Helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles have also been deployed.(PAP)
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