A house in eastern Poland that was damaged during last week's Russian drone incursions into the country, was likely hit by a missile fired by a Polish fighter jet, a Polish government minister has said.
Polish authorities had initially said that the house in the village of Wyryki in the Lublin region, 20km from the borders with Ukraine and Belarus, had been damaged as a result of the drone incursion.
According to reporting earlier this week by Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, a Polish F-16 fighter jet had launched a missile to shoot down a drone over the village, but the missile guidance system malfunctioned.
Sources within the state security services, cited by the newspaper, said the missile did not arm itself and did not explode due to a fuse protection system.
Miraculously, the owners of the house, a retired couple, emerged unscathed from the incident.
"Everything indicates that it was a missile fired by our plane, defending Poland, defending the fatherland, defending our citizens," Poland's Minister and Coordinator for Special Services Tomasz Siemoniak told independent broadcaster TVN24.
On Tuesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had written on social platform X that: "The entire responsibility for the damage to the house in Wyryki falls on the authors of the drone provocation, i.e. Russia. All the circumstances of the incident will be reported to the public, the government and the president after the proceedings are completed."
State to pay for reconstruction
Poland's ministry of defence has said that the state will pay for the cost of rebuilding the couple's home, and that Polish soldiers will carry out the reconstruction work.
Polish authorities have recovered the remains of 17 of the 19 drones that entered Polish airspace on the morning of 10 September, which Warsaw said was a deliberate violation of Polish airspace by Russia.
Read more: Russian drones in Poland's airspace 'reckless', says Taoiseach
High tension: Poland after the drone incursions
"It's not like everything is clear after the first hour, three hours," said Mr Siemoniak during last night's television interview.
"Drone parts are currently being examined by our specialists, very carefully, very thoroughly, by the services, by experts," he added.
The incident in Wyryki highlights the risk of shooting drones with high explosive missiles at low altitude in populated areas.
Meanwhile, Polish authorities remain on high alert one week after the drone incursions.
On Monday evening, Polish state services "neutralised" a drone that appeared above government buildings in a part of central Warsaw where drone flights are banned.
Two people, a Belarusian national and a Ukrainian national, were arrested after the incident.
An initial investigation by the state Internal Security Agency found that they had not acted on behalf of a foreign country.
