WARSAW (Reuters) -The Russian ambassador to Poland ignored a summons to appear at the country’s foreign ministry on Monday after Warsaw said a missile launched at targets in western Ukraine violated its airspace.
Poland’s military said its defence radar systems recorded the missile entering the country’s airspace for 39 seconds on Sunday, encroaching 2 km (1.24 miles) into Polish territory before returning into Ukraine.
“The ambassador of the Russian Federation … did not attend
the foreign ministry today to explain the incident,” foreign
ministry spokesperson Pawel Wronski told reporters.
Poland will decide on the next steps in coming days as it cannot ignore such “a sign of contempt”, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told Polsat News television on Monday.
“These must be agreed decisions, because this is the response of the entire Polish state,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
The Russian embassy in Warsaw confirmed Sergey Andreev had been summoned to the ministry on Monday but did not attend.
“The ambassador asked whether the Polish side was ready
to provide evidence for its claims,” it said, referencing what
it described as a “similar situation” in December 2023.
“Since the replies of our Polish colleagues did not
indicate that such evidence would be provided this time, the
ambassador decided that a discussion on this topic would be
pointless and rejected the invitation to the meeting.”
(Reporting Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Ros Russell, Costas Pitas and Sandra Maler)
