Warsaw has insisted that a Russian missile discovered by chance in a Polish forest poses “no security risk” to the country.
The cruise missile discovered last month by a horse-rider has exposed an apparent double failure of Polish air defence and security services, and raised the stakes for the government ahead of September’s general election.
On April 22nd, in a forest near the northwestern city of Bydgoszcz, a woman and her horse discovered the missile with Cyrillic script on the side. It was five days before Polish investigators sealed off the strike site, sparking weeks of leaks and rows between the defence ministry and Polish media.
It took until May 19th for Polish officials to confirm that the warhead – containing concrete rather than explosives – belonged to a CH-55 sub-sonic cruise missile, known in Nato circles as the AS-15 Kent, with a range of up to 2,500km.
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Russia is deploying these air-launched missiles in large quantities in its war on Ukraine. The CH-55 is capable of carrying a nuclear payload and travel at low altitude at a speed of more than 1,000km/h, making it difficult to detect by radar.
After days of confusion, claims and denials, the Polish defence ministry has confirmed that the rocket was fired on December 16th last year during an air raid on Ukraine carried out by Russian aircraft based in Belarus, in which Nato aircraft were scrambled.
Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki says he was not informed about the incident until April while his defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, has come under fire for not responding sooner.
At a press conference, Mr Błaszczak confirmed the missile was tracked by Polish air defence personnel when it entered Polish airspace before they lost track of it – and Poland’s security services were unable to find it.
The defence minister said he received an operational report that “there was no violation of Polish airspace, which, as it turned out later, was not true”.
What happened next last December remains a matter of dispute between the minister and Poland’s most senior military staff.
When military helicopters were unable to locate the remains of the rocket from the air, senior military officers say their recommendation of a wider search was vetoed by Mr Błaszczak, reportedly amid fears of alarming the civilian population.
The minister said he “denies strongly” claims he refused to order a further search, saying “such a request was never made to me”.
Instead, he demanded the resignation of the armed forces’ operational commander, Tomasz Piotrowski, for failure to fulfil his duties. The army chief insisted he had acted properly and demanded the defence minister be fired.
Amid those mutual recriminations, the defence minister has also called for the resignation of Poland’s top general, Rajmund Andrzejczak, who has said he had “informed his superiors” about the incident in line with procedure had “nothing to reproach” himself for.
Poland’s opposition head Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform, called for the dismissal of Mr Błaszczak for putting “Poland’s security at risk . . . and running away from responsibility to hide behind Polish generals”.
As a government inquiry gets under way, the rocket row has potential to cause major political waves in the election campaign – and post-poll coalition talks.
For one it could hit the political ambitions of Mr Błaszczak, a senior figure in the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and one of the leading candidates to be its next leader.
Fears that Poland cannot defend its airspace, in part because of equipment transfers to Ukraine, could also generate blowback for ageing PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Last year he and Mr Błaszczak rejected a German offer of three Patriot air defence systems. They relented after stray Ukrainian missiles killed two people in a Polish village last November. After months of delays, the systems began to be deployed in January.
The two missile incidents have stoked Polish fears the Russian-Ukraine war could spill over into their territory, potentially triggering a Nato response.
