Ukrainian fighter jets tried to shoot down Russian missiles near the border with Poland on Thursday; however, at least one breached Polish airspace, Western officials said.<\/p>\n
US Army Col. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesperson for NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, told Business Insider NATO and Poland activated their air and ground defenses<\/a> “in response to a Russian missile of currently unknown type that entered Polish airspace” and crashed inside the country.<\/p>\n O’Donnell said two Polish F-16s<\/a>, a NATO A330 refueling aircraft<\/a>, a Polish Saab 340 airborne early warning<\/a> plane, and a Polish Mi-24 helicopter<\/a> were all scrambled in response.<\/p>\n Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the weapon’s crash site that, per the “military’s assessment regarding the missile fragments, everything points to the fact that it was a Russian Kh-101 missile.”<\/p>\n He said there is no indication to suggest that Poland was deliberately attacked. He added that Ukrainian fighter jets<\/a> had tracked and attempted to destroy Russian missiles up to the border.<\/p>\n The Kh-101<\/a>, known by NATO as the AS-23 Kodiak, is an air-launched cruise missile<\/a> with a maximum speed of around 600 mph that Russia frequently uses in large-scale attacks against Ukraine. Russia launched over 60 Kh-101s as part of an overnight barrage, the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.<\/p>\n Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said a Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland, “violating NATO airspace” during the attack.<\/p>\n Earlier on Thursday, the Polish military<\/a> said that radars recorded at least a dozen missiles above western Ukraine. One “object” came within a few miles of the border at roughly 3:30 a.m. local time, but changed directions and headed east.<\/p>\n 10 minutes later, at 3:40 a.m., an “unidentified object” was detected inside Polish airspace heading west, but it then disappeared from radars at 3:46 a.m. before it could be identified, the military said. It located “the probable crash site” near Tarnawa-Kolonia in southwestern Poland. The site is 60 miles from the border.<\/p>\n Tusk later said that the munition left a 10-meter-wide, 5-meter-deep crater that was consistent with the explosive payload of a Kh-101.<\/p>\n Neither Russia’s defense ministry nor its embassy in the US responded to a request for comment on the Polish and Ukrainian assessments.<\/p>\n Russian drones<\/a> have crossed into Polish airspace repeatedly since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, including dozens of aircraft in a September 2025 incident<\/a> that prompted NATO to surge air defense assets to the Eastern flank. However, it is much rarer for a Russian missile to violate Polish airspace<\/a>. Previous incidents were also much closer to its border with Ukraine.<\/p>\n O’Donnell said that NATO “is in close contact with the Polish authorities about the violation of Poland’s airspace.”<\/p>\n This latest incident comes amid a string of NATO airspace violations. Last weekend, Russian drones crossed into Romania<\/a> several days in a row, and F-16 fighter jets were scrambled each time to intercept them.<\/p>\n