„There is a desire to maintain composure, but to respond firmly. We see that we have managed to maintain that composure. That firm response should still, I think, follow this incident, first and foremost, with forces,“ said the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the LRT program „Dienos tema“ on Monday.
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„Also perhaps non-public communication to Russia, because both the ‘Eastern Guard’ and ‘Baltic Guard’ operations showed that when we increase forces in the region, when that is unacceptable to Russia, they take precautionary measures and incidents against Poland stopped, as well as infrastructure damage in the Baltic Sea stopped,“ said K. Budrys.
„This does not mean that in every case it was planned, done with intention, or damaged. (…) After this event, it must be exactly the same,“ added the minister.
As BNS wrote, Polish officials reported last Thursday that in the eastern Lublin region, after an explosion following new missile attacks by Russia against neighboring Ukraine, there remained a crater about ten meters in diameter.
The Polish Minister of Defense claimed that the Ch-101 missile was manufactured near Moscow, while a representative of the Lublin prosecutor’s office indicated that the expert from Ukraine had no doubts about the missile’s origin and model.
Meanwhile, a representative of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that such missiles are used exclusively by Russian strategic aviation.
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NATO confirmed that the object that fell in Poland was a Russian missile, and European leaders condemned the incident. The Alliance also indicated that it maintains close ties with Warsaw and promised to continue taking all necessary measures to defend the territory of member states.
„If there is a lack of forces, we must increase them, because we cannot normalize situations of this nature when missiles enter our airspace. And finally, the political response as an organization, I think, could have been really stronger,“ K. Budrys told the national broadcaster.
The missile fell near the village of Tarnava Kolonia in Eastern Poland, about 80 km from the Ukrainian border, on the night when Moscow intensively attacked Ukraine, launching 74 missiles and 284 drones.
Since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian drones and missiles have also struck other Eastern European countries, especially Romania and Moldova.
