Warsaw says explosion in eastern Poland likely caused by drone

Aug 20, 2025 | Defence, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

An unidentified object that exploded last night after falling into eastern Poland was most likely a drone, the country’s defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, has said.

The incident occured near Osiny, a Polish village around 100 km from the Ukrainian border. The blast broke windows in several houses but caused no injuries.

Kosiniak-Kamysz today told a press conference that a pyrotechnic analysis is underway to establish whether it was a military or smuggling drone, or an “act of sabotage”. Prosecutors, however, said that preliminary findings indicate it was a military drone.

Police said they received a report of an “explosion” shortly after 2 a.m. in Osiny in Lublin province, which borders both Ukraine and Belarus. Officers found burnt metal and plastic debris at the scene.

Kosiniak-Kamysz said uniformed services were securing and searching the area, with the assistance of helicopters and drones, to establish what happened.

The defence minister explained that the information he has received does not currently indicate that the object was of “a military nature”, meaning “we cannot rule out the possibility that we are dealing with a smuggling drone.”

However, he added that “we should not rule out something that has also happened in other countries – acts of sabotage” and pointed to a rise in such incidents, attributed to Russia, across the European Union.

 

“We have examples of Russian offensive actions targeting NATO countries in the case of arson. Therefore, we cannot rule out these hybrid, provocative actions against the Polish state,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

Across the past year, Poland has charged a number of people suspected of spying and carrying out sabotage, including arson, on behalf of Russia and Belarus.

Earlier this week, a Belarusian man was charged with planning an arson attack in eastern Poland. In May, two Ukrainian citizens were charged with terrorism and espionage over their alleged involvement in an arson attack carried out on behalf of Russia that in 2024 destroyed Warsaw’s largest shopping centre.

Local prosecutors, however, offered a different assessment to the defence minister, suggesting that the object was a military drone.

“Preliminarily, we are dealing with a military drone. It was most likely damaged by explosives,” said Grzegorz Trusiewicz of the Lublin prosecutor’s office at a press conference, according to Polskie Radio 24.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported, based on a source in the defence ministry, that the object was a military drone without a warhead.

Meanwhile, Rzeczpospolita, a leading Polish daily, is reporting unofficially that the object may have been an Iranian Shahed 131 or 136 drone. Modified versions of these drones are used by Russia in Ukraine.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Armed Forces Operational Command, Poland’s main command of armed forces, said it had not detected any violations of Polish airspace overnight from either Ukraine or Belarus.

Kosiniak-Kamysz echoed the assessment, saying that “according to preliminary analysis, radar systems did not record any violations of airspace”, although checks were continuing.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Polish airspace has been violated several times, including by Russian missiles and observation balloons, as well as Belarusian helicopters.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

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