- Category
- Latest news
Russian Drones That Hit Poland Were "Strays," Belarusian Defense Ministry Says
- Authors
![Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko]( "Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko")
After Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused Russia of staging a large-scale provocation and confirmed that a significant number of Russian drones were shot down overnight in Polish territory, Belarus moved to issue its own statement.
Belarusian First Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Muraveyko claimed on September 10 that Minsk had warned Warsaw about the movements of UAVs in its airspace.
“Some of the stray drones were destroyed by our air defense forces over the territory of the republic,” he said.
Muraveyko added that on the night of September 9–10, Belarusian duty forces “exchanged information about the air and radar situation with the duty forces and assets of Poland and Lithuania.”
He stressed that this coordination “allowed the Polish side to respond quickly to the drones by scrambling its own forces.” According to him, Belarus continued to track Russian and Ukrainian drones that had strayed off course as a result of electronic warfare measures.
Russia’s drone strike on Poland, however, was no sudden escalation. Evidence suggests the Kremlin had been preparing for such cross-border operations for months. According to a September 10 investigation by Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express, Polish SIM cards were discovered inside Russian drones shot down in Ukraine as far back as July—pointing to deliberate planning for incursions into Polish territory.
On September 10 Russia launched another wave of Shahed drone attacks overnight, setting off air raid sirens across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, which came under intense fire. The impact extended beyond Ukraine’s borders, as several Russian-made Shahed drones reportedly crossed into Polish airspace, according to open-source intelligence.
