According to him, that night two military aircraft were on alert in eastern Poland: one had just finished refueling in the air, and the second was near the Poland-Ukraine border.
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As he recounted, at about 3:40 a.m. local time, neither the command nor the Polish F-16 pilot was able to correctly identify another object flying directly towards the border – it turned out to be a Ukrainian MiG-29, which was being monitored by both the Polish F-16 aircraft and some crews of Poland’s ground-based air defense systems.
The fateful 30 seconds
According to I. Novak, if the Ukrainian pilot had lost alertness for even 30 seconds and entered Polish airspace, the Poles might have had to decide whether to start shooting at him.
Meanwhile, the second alert aircraft, having just finished refueling, was already near a Russian cruise missile two minutes later, crossed its trajectory, and was ready to intercept it if the flight had lasted longer.
Analyzing the attack that took place in Poland, I. Novak said he was 80 percent sure that the “Kh-101” missile falling into a field near the village of Tarnava-Kolonia was not an accident.
In his opinion, the missile’s trajectory did not foresee an alternative target in Ukrainian territory and led exactly to where it eventually fell.
Why was the Ukrainian fighter unknown?
The general also explained why the Polish side did not know about Ukrainian aviation movements near the border for a long time.
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Ukraine’s air defense management and control system “Virazh” is a platform coordinating threat data collection based on a network of acoustic sensors (primarily smartphones with microphones mounted on poles across the country) – before the incident, it only transmitted information to Poland about Russian missiles and drones that could potentially violate Polish airspace.
According to the officer, Ukraine deliberately did not disclose data about its aircraft: information about Ukrainian aviation movements is especially sensitive for Kyiv because such aircraft on the ground are easy targets for Russia, and hiding their locations is a matter of pilot survival.
After this incident, the Polish operational command sent a letter to the Chief of the General Staff of Ukraine and the Air Force commander requesting information about Ukrainian aviation movements near the border – since then Kyiv has started doing so.
15min reminds that on the night of July 30, a Russian “Kh-101” cruise missile fell into a field near the village of Tarnava-Kolonia in the Lublin Voivodeship, violating Polish and NATO airspace and creating a crater.
In response to the massive Russian attack on western Ukraine, Poland scrambled its F-16 fighters, as well as allied reconnaissance aircraft and refueling planes. According to Polish data, at that time a total of 20 Russian missiles were flying towards its airspace.
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