Polish prosecutors and law enforcement officers are investigating the incident in the village of Osiny in Lublin Voivodeship, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Ukrainian border and roughly 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Warsaw. Officials have not publicly confirmed the type of drone involved.
Grzegorz Trusewicz, district prosecutor in Lublin, said preliminary findings suggest a military drone crashed in a field in Osiny. A military pyrotechnics expert has been tasked with determining whether the explosion occurred on impact with the ground or in midair, possibly after striking a nearby power line, Trusewicz added.
An unnamed source at Poland’s Defense Ministry told PAP news agency that the drone was likely an unarmed “decoy” model containing only a small explosive charge. However, Trusewicz later confirmed that forensic analysis detected explosives on the UAV fragments recovered on site.
The report cited a photograph of the wreckage showing an MD550 four-stroke engine—commonly used by Russia in its Shahed UAVs—but fitted with an unusual muffler on the exhaust system. The report also noted that satellite images indicate the drone violated Polish airspace before crashing.
Polish military officials maintain there were no unauthorized incursions from Ukraine or Belarus. But Defense Express and other analysts point out that Russia’s standard tactic during strikes on Ukraine often involves drones briefly flying over neighboring NATO countries, including Poland and Romania.
Earlier on Aug. 20, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski publicly recognized that Poland’s airspace had been violated “from the east.” He promised to lodge a formal protest against the responsible party, without naming a country. Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said the drone was Russian and accused Moscow of “provoking NATO members again” at a time when peace talks are under way.
According to the report, the done was launched from the Russian air base at Shatalovo, Smolensk Oblast, at about 9 p.m. Kyiv time on Aug. 19. Whether its deviation into Polish airspace was deliberate or the result of a systems malfunction remains unclear.