A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile flew almost 100 kilometres into Polish airspace on 30 July and came down near Tarnawa-Kolonia. Polish F-16 fighters were already in the air, tracked the weapon and had permission to engage it, yet no shots were fired. Generals interviewed by WNP explain the reasoning behind that decision.
The incident, confirmed by Gen. Mieczysław Cieniuch, former chief of the Polish General Staff, involved a Kh-101, the successor to the Soviet Kh-55. Its twin variant, the Kh-102, is designed to carry a nuclear warhead; from the outside the two missiles are almost impossible to tell apart. Cieniuch said the episode showed that Russian 'precision’ weapons can miss their intended direction by roughly 100 km, though he did not believe the missile was deliberately aimed at Poland.
– We can see what Russian precision-guided weapons look like, whose precision reaches about 100 km. The second remark, slightly humorous, is that Russian operators must be cross-eyed: they direct missiles not where they are looking, but in a completely different direction. The matter is very serious – said Gen. Mieczysław Cieniuch.
Cieniuch argued that from a purely statistical point of view, such an incident was bound to happen eventually. He recalled that a Ukrainian missile had previously killed two people near Przewodów, and stressed that the latest Russian missile luckily caused no casualties. He also warned against treating the event as material for political games: politicians should set requirements and give the military the tools to act, not run operations from command posts.
F-16s were ready and watching
Details of the night were presented by Gen. Ireneusz Nowak, head of the Operational Command. At 1:59 two F-16s took off from Łask airbase. At 2:16 the command activated military aviation, radiolocation assets and air defence systems, with the threat covering the whole of Ukraine. Helicopters were scrambled at 3:14. When Russian missiles approached the Polish border, the fighters had already been airborne for some time.
One Russian missile came within about 5 km of the border and then turned away. Another entered Polish airspace. The operational commander directed a fighter to the area, and the crew observed the missile’s further flight. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said the aircraft was ready to use full weaponry and both the commander and the pilot had the authority to decide to shoot it down. – If it had headed towards populated areas, it would have been shot down. It is hard to present the situation more transparently – he said.
Gen. Tomasz Drewniak, former air forces inspector, believes the air defence system did not fail. He explained that Russian forces often launch missiles from the north, near the Belarusian border, to force Ukraine to disperse its air defence. The weapons then turn and strike Lviv from directions close to Poland, sometimes flying along Polish territory before changing course. That is how Polish airspace gets violated.
No perfect shield and no shooting at everything
The Kh-101 that crashed in Poland is a 7.5-metre, 2.5-tonne weapon carrying a conventional warhead of 400-480 kg, or up to 800 kg in newer versions. Drewniak stressed that it remains indistinguishable from the nuclear-capable Kh-102. He rejected calls for automatically shooting down every object that crosses Poland’s border, saying no country in peacetime maintains a seamless missile wall along its entire frontier or fires indiscriminately at moving objects.
– I still ask how we are supposed to shoot down stray drones or missiles. Proponents of such a solution say that everything that crosses the Polish border even minimally should be immediately brought down. But how would that work in practice? There is no country in the world that maintains a tight air defence wall along its entire border and shoots at every moving object, especially in peacetime – explained Gen. Tomasz Drewniak.
Drewniak noted that in peacetime an object must be clearly identified as hostile before weapons can be used. An aircraft arriving from Ukraine could be a business jet carrying ten people. He also pointed out that Poland is not at war and has not closed its airspace; firing immediately after a border violation could cause losses on the other side of the frontier. Poland should follow international standards, not behave like Russia or North Korea, which have shot down civilian aircraft.
The former inspector acknowledged that no air defence system will ever cover the whole country. Even after additional Patriot batteries arrive, villages and towns without strategic sites will remain exposed. He said politicians rarely admit that a fully sealed shield would cost far more than the state can afford, and similar incidents will keep happening. During the 30 July operation, Polish forces controlled the situation: allied tankers supported Polish fighters, and NATO assets reinforced national air defence.
Drewniak also explained that the system is evolving from ground-based assets to aerostat-borne radars, future tanker aircraft and modern early-warning planes. Before a missile can be fired, an object must be detected, identified and passed through a decision chain. In peacetime, Polish troops cannot fire across the border without appropriate agreements. The Baltic states allow NATO aircraft to patrol and, under strict rules, use weapons, but Ukraine is not a NATO member and operates outside NATO’s integrated command and warning system, so Polish fire over Ukrainian territory remains excluded.
Source: WNP.PL, Photo: PAP/Wojtek Jargiło / PAP
