WARSAW, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Sirens sounded in eastern Poland, military aircraft were scrambled and two airports temporarily suspended flights after Russian strikes on Ukraine came close to the NATO member’s border, Polish and Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday.
The Polish army said that no violation of Polish airspace was recorded and that military aircraft had finished their operations. Airports in Rzeszow and Lublin reopened after their temporary closure.
“A massive attack on the western part of Ukraine — very close to the Polish border — has just ended,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a press conference. “A petrol station was likely hit again, and our aircraft were scrambled.”
Lieutenant Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, a spokesperson for the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces, told private broadcaster TVN24 a drone had crashed or been shot down around 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) from the Polish border.
Deputy Defence Minister Cezary Tomczyk told reporters that the army’s Operational Command had pre-authorised military jets to shoot down any drone that crossed the border.
Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said in a post on X that Poland was strengthening airspace protection. “We have increased F-16 and helicopter activity, and are reinforcing our air defence and rapid response systems,” he wrote.
A Ukrainian official told Reuters that explosions sounded several kilometres from the border on the Ukrainian side. On Sunday, a Russian drone hit a passenger train just two kilometres from the Ukraine-Polish border.
Residents of two eastern regions of Poland received alerts warning them of a risk of aerial attacks and that they should find a safe place.
Local media reported that sirens had sounded and that in some schools pupils had sought shelter.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Karol Badohal, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alex Richardson)
