Poland investigates mystery crater following possible Russian cruise missile crash

Residents in eastern Poland woke to a violent rumble on Thursday morning, as air sirens blasted in the middle of the night because of a Russian missile attack on Ukraine.

But Thursday morning, a crater near the Polish village of Tarnawa-Kolonia shows that it was not just Ukraine that got hit in the Russian attack.

In a post on X, the Lublin Police reported that the military was conducting on-site activities near the site of a crashed unidentified object, with the police later stating that the area had been checked for radiation and similar hazards.

It is still unclear what caused the explosion creating the crater, which sits about 95 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, but according to defense outlet Militarnyi, Ukrainian monitoring groups reported that a Russian cruise missile flew deep into Polish territory before crashing.

Vanished off radar

The trouble started hours earlier when Russian forces launched heavy air attacks across western Ukraine. In response, Poland scrambled fighter jets to safeguard its borders.

Poland’s Armed Forces Operational Command detected an unidentified aerial target entering the country at 3:40 am. An F-16 jet raced to intercept it. Within six minutes, the fast-moving radar target vanished completely.

A military helicopter team later located the impact site in an uninhabited field. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, confirms on X, that a violation of Poland’s air space occured during the Russian attack on Ukraine. He did not provide any information on what caused the violation.

Heavy casualties in Ukraine

According to The Kyiv Independent, Russia launched hundreds of drones as well as dozens of cruise and ballistic missiles during the night.

Damage has been reported in a number of cities, and at least eight people have been confirmed killed, two of them children.

At least 45 have been injured, but as rescue operations are still ongoing, both numbers could increase in the coming hours.

This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation