Poland’s defence minister blamed Russia on Wednesday for a drone crashing and exploding in farmland in the east of the country overnight.
“Once again, we are facing a provocation from the Russian Federation, with a Russian drone,”
Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters
The explosion occurred in a cornfield near the village of Osiny some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Warsaw and around the same distance from the borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
The minister said it came at “a particular moment, where peace talks are underway, where there is hope that this war… has a chance to end. Russia provokes once again.”
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski condemned
“a new violation of our airspace from the east”.
“The foreign ministry will protest to the perpetrator of this violation,”
he wrote on X.
Polish media published a video showing an explosion during the night, and photos of debris including an engine and a propellor.
Polish general Dariusz Malinowski said the aircraft
“was a decoy drone, which was not armed but carried a self-destruct warhead”.
Poland in 2023 accused Russia of using its airspace to fire a missile at Ukraine during a bombardment.
And in November 2022, two civilians were killed when a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile fell on a village near the border.