The Polish news outlet Rzeczpospolita said in an editorial on Tuesday that it was more likely that a house badly damaged in the town of Wyryki Wola in Poland’s Lublin Voivodeship was hit by an air-to-air missile fired by one of its own fighters than a Russian drone. Both Polish F-16 and Dutch F-35 fighters are said to have engaged the incoming drones.
The extraordinary violation of Polish airspace by as many as 19 Russian drones on the night of Sept. 9-10 was called a “large scale [Russian] provocation” by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. In response Polish authorities said that NATO aircraft had shot down at least four drones with the rest apparently crashing without causing any damage – except for the strike on the Wyryki Wola house.
The authorities have only said that the damage was caused by an “unidentified flying object,” with no further details forthcoming, which has raised suspicion in the minds of commentators and experts on the true cause of the hit.
Rzeczpospolita cited Agnieszka Kępka, spokeswoman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, whose military department is charged with investigating the incursion, as saying: “At this point, I can’t definitively say what fell on the house in Wyryki. It’s under investigation, and we’re waiting for [a military weapons] expert’s opinion.”
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The news outlet cited sources from within an unnamed “state security agency” that claim the strike was from “an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile… which experienced a malfunction in its guidance system during flight and failed to fire. Fortunately, it didn’t explode because the fuse’s safety devices were triggered,” but immediately added: “There was a Russian airstrike, and the Polish side was defending itself.”
Another expert quoted in the report, Lt. Col. Maciej Korowaj, a former military intelligence officer, now a security and military strategy analyst, said the damage was characteristic from a kinetic impact: “There was no explosion, no detonation, as can be seen in the photos of the destroyed house.”
The Moscow Times interviewed the occupants of the house, Alicja and Tomasz Wieselowski, on the day after the attack. They said they had been watching a TV news report about the drone raid when an aircraft flew over their house, followed by a loud bang which shook them and their home. Fortunately, neither were injured.
The Mayor of Wyryki, Bernard Błaszczuk, said the municipality had provided the Wieselowskis with temporary housing while their home is inspected to see if repairs are possible. He said the initial estimate put cost of repairs at 50,000 złoty ($14,000), but that the final cost had not yet been established.
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