Poland detects incursion in airspace

Warsaw, May 13

Poland Defence Ministry said on Saturday that it detected an object in the country’s Polish airspace that flew in from the direction of Belarus, and that it’s probably an observation balloon.

The ministry tweeted that radar contact with the object was lost near Rypin, a town in central Poland 143 kilometre northwest of the capital, Warsaw.

A search was launched in the vicinity of Rypin involving a helicopter, a drone and ground groups from the Territorial Defence Forces, a press officer with the Operational Command of the Armed Forces, Capt Ewa Zlotnicka, told the television broadcaster TVN24.

The object was spotted on Friday at around 8:30 pm local time near Bialowieza, which is near Poland’s border with Belarus. Radar monitoring was carried out, but at around 12:30 am on Saturday, the object ceased to be visible, Zlotnicka said in a phone interview with the private TV station.

The development reported Saturday follows two other known incursions into Poland’s airspace since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which lies on Poland’s eastern border.

In November, two Polish men were killed when a missile landed in eastern Poland. Western officials said they believed a Ukrainian air defence missile went astray as Ukrainian air forces tried to repel a large-scale attack by Russia.

Polish military and political officials are also facing questions about another object that landed on Polish territory in December, but which was only discovered in April by chance by a member of the public who was riding a horse in a forest. — AP