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Russian Kh-55 cruise missile crosses into Poland, found five months later

Incident Report

Fact Sheet
Date16 Dec 2022
TrackerEuropean Airspace Violations
TypeIncursion
Location Zamość, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland
53.07, 17.81 (approximate)
What Happened

During a Russian missile attack on Ukraine, Polish radar picked up an unidentified object inside national airspace. Neither the American F-15s nor the Polish MiG-29s airborne nearby could identify it before it vanished from the screens. The wreckage surfaced only on 27 April 2023, when a horse rider found the remains of a Kh-55 cruise missile in a forest near Bydgoszcz in northern Poland — close to NATO's Joint Force Training Centre. The four-month gap, and the fact that radar had lost the missile entirely, caused a lasting political controversy in Warsaw.

Zamość, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland
Zamość, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland
Marker placed at city precision.

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