Poland Thinks Russia Fired Missile at Ukraine, Missed

A pre-dawn blast that left a 33-foot-wide hole in a Polish field was likely caused by a Russian missile, Poland's prime minister said Thursday. Donald Tusk told reporters that fragments recovered near the village of Tarnawa Kolonia, about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border, "point to it being a Russian Kh-101 missile," per the BBC. No one was hurt, and the missile landed away from homes, he said. The slight twist is that the missile landed about 30 miles from the town where Tusk was meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, which the New York Times notes Tusk called "an unusual coincidence." "We were ready to shoot down this missile if it continued its flight," Tusk said.

Poland's military had tracked the object around at 3:40am local time and scrambled an F-16 before it vanished from radar. The incident coincided with a large Russian barrage on Lviv, Kyiv, and near Kryvyi Rih that killed at least eight in Ukraine. Ukraine's acting foreign minister Andriy Sybiha earlier said a Russian Kh-101 had "crossed into Poland as part of Russia's massive strike against Ukraine, violating NATO airspace." Pyrotechnic analysis is underway.