Poland says the Russian missile entered its airspace and then entered Ukraine

The commander of the Polish Armed Forces believes a Russian missile entered Poland for about three minutes and then returned to Ukrainian airspace.

Gen. Wieslaw Kokula said the missile traveled about 40 kilometers (25 miles) into Polish airspace early Friday.

This warning coincided with what Ukraine described as the largest day of Russian air strikes since the start of the war.

President Andrzej Duda held an emergency security meeting after radar detected the object.

About 200 police officers are conducting a search in the area where the object was discovered in anticipation of the missile falling on Polish territory.

Poland is a member of NATO, and Polish and allied aircraft were scrambled in response to the incident at around 07:00 (06:00 GMT) on Friday. There were no reports of an explosion.

Operations Command spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, said that an unknown object entered Poland from Ukraine near the town of Zamosc, in the Lublin region in southeastern Poland, not far from the border.

He told private channel TVN24 that the event may be linked to the Russian missile and drone attack on some of Ukraine's largest cities.

At least 28 people were killed in the attacks that targeted Lviv, the closest Ukrainian city to the Lublin region, as well as Dnipro, Kiev and other cities.

An unconfirmed report said that a search operation was being conducted near the town of Hrubchov.

The Polish government did not rule out Russian provocation. Deputy Defense Minister Stanislav Ziatek told TVN24: “We need to check whether this is a provocation or a test of our reaction. We must check both scenarios carefully.”

Polish military expert Commander Maximilian Dora told TVN24 that it was too early to conclude that it was a Russian missile because it was not found, and just because contact was lost, it could not be confirmed that it left Polish airspace.

Krzysztof Komorski, President of Lublin Governorate [equivalent to a province or region] “Please calm down and be patient, services are working,” he wrote on social media.