BY VANESSA GERA AND TONY HICKS
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Poland demanded an explanation from
Russia on Sunday after one of its missiles strayed briefly into Polish airspace
during a major missile attack on Ukraine, prompting the NATO member to activate
F-16 fighter jets.
It was Russia’s third big missile attack on Ukraine in the
past four days, and the second to target the capital, Kyiv.
The governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said on
the Telegram platform that critical infrastructure was hit, but he didn’t specify
what precisely was struck. No deaths or injuries were reported.
Later, authorities said that rescuers had just put out a
fire at a critical infrastructure facility in the Lviv region, which had been
attacked with missiles and drones at night and in the morning.
The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko,
said Russia used cruise missiles launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers. An
air alert in the capital lasted for more than two hours as rockets entered Kyiv
in groups from the north.
He said the attacks were launched from the Engels district
in the Saratov region of Russia.
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According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or
damage in the capital, he said.
Armed Forces Operational Command of Poland, a member of
NATO, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23
a.m. (0323 GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns
in western Ukraine.
The object entered near Oserdow, a village in an
agricultural region near the border with Ukraine, and stayed in Polish airspace
for 39 seconds, the statement said. It wasn’t immediately clear if Russia
intended for the missile to enter Poland’s airspace. Cruise missiles are able
to change their trajectory to evade air defense systems.
Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz
later told reporters in a televised news conference that the Russian missile
would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading
towards a target in Poland.
He said that Polish authorities monitored the attack on
Ukraine and were in contact with Ukrainian counterparts. Polish and NATO F-16s
were activated as part of the strategic response.
He said the missile penetrated Polish airspace about a
kilometer or two (a half-mile to around a mile) as Russia was targeting the
region around Lviv in western Ukraine.
“As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the
most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic
procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the
Polish airspace,” he said.
On the diplomatic front, the Polish foreign ministry said
that it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection
with another violation of the country’s airspace.”
“Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the
terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war,
and address the country’s internal problems,” the statement read.
Andrzej Szejna, a deputy foreign minister, told the TVN24
broadcaster that the foreign ministry intended to summon the Russian ambassador
to Poland and hand him a protest note.
Henryk Zdyb, the head of the village of Oserdow, said in an
interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he saw the missile, saying it
produced a whistling sound.
“I saw a rapidly moving object in the sky. It was
illuminated and flying quite low over the border with Ukraine,” he told the
paper.
Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more
than two years ago, there have been a number of intrusions into Polish
airspace, triggering worry in the European Union and NATO member state and
reminding people of how close the war is.
“We have to come to terms with the fact that the war is
taking place right next to us, and we are part of the confrontation between the
West and Russia,” commentator Artur Bartkiewicz wrote in the Rzeczpospolita
newspaper Sunday.
In 2022, two Poles were killed in a missile blast. Western
officials blamed those deaths on a Ukrainian air defense missile that went
astray, but also accused Russia of culpability because it started the war, with
the Ukrainian missiles launched in self-defense.
On Saturday night, one person was killed and four others
were wounded in a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol on the Russia-occupied
Crimean Peninsula, city Gov. Mikhail Razvozhaev said on his Telegram channel.