A Russian missile flew into the territory of Poland for 39 seconds

Today, after the Russian missile attack against Ukraine at night, the operational command of the Polish army reported that one of the missiles entered Polish airspace. Military planes of Poland and NATO took off.

"The object entered the Polish space near the city of Oserdów (Lublin Voivodeship) and stayed there for 39 seconds. During the entire flight, he was monitored by military radars," the report says.

As a result, the Russian missile was never shot down.

Minister of Defense of Poland Władysław Kosyniak-Kamys held a press conference regarding the violation of airspace.

"Each such situation is considered individually. But if there were any signs that this object was headed for some target located on the territory of Poland, it would obviously have been shot down," the politician emphasized.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland summoned the Russian ambassador in connection with the third violation of Polish airspace by a Russian missile during the full-scale war.

Among a number of Ukrainian social media users, the lack of NATO's desired reaction - the shooting down of a missile - caused the appearance of memes, frank mockery and accusations of cowardice by the leadership of the alliance.

"That is, the rocket flew into the air space and what is happening? Nothing. A rocket is flying, which can fall somewhere, kill someone, but it's okay, it's in transit - how is that? What is this, excuse me, "tolerated"?" MP Oleksiy Goncharenko writes in a telegram.

According to the politician, Putin, seeing the lack of reaction, will provoke the alliance countries even more.

"It's time to show your teeth and not be afraid. Such attacks should become another signal that your own security depends on the support of Ukraine. If you don't want to shoot down yourself, then give us more anti-aircraft defense and weapons, we will do it for you," Goncharenko urges.

However, experts have different opinions on this situation.

Lack of political will, time or unwillingness to spend money?

Polish military analyst Jarosław Wolski explains on the X social network that Poland does not shoot down Russian missiles for several reasons.

First, airspace must be closed during such a response, which would cause severe economic consequences for 66 civilian Polish airports.

"The airspace must be closed to avoid tragic mistakes. We will leave the downing of passenger planes to the Russians and Iranians," he explains.

Second, debris from a downed missile can kill someone.

"This is a significant factor that poses a threat to the civilian population on the ground. Both in Poland and in Ukraine," writes Volskyi.

In addition, according to him, there is no desire to reveal to the Russians and Belarusians the modes of operation of air defense and radar fighters in Poland, because they will immediately start looking for ways to reduce their effectiveness.

At the end of the day, there's always the question of where the missile is going and whether it's worth spending the money to shoot down the missile.

"There is no air defense that covers 100% of the country's territory. It is always difficult to choose objects for cover and objects that will not be protected. Military airports, command centers, the largest population centers in the country, the most important objects of critical infrastructure (mainly energy), areas of military mobilization, etc. These are objects that will be protected. So if the X-101 got lost and was flying in the direction of Warsaw or Rzeszów, it would probably have been shot down," Volskyi assures.

In his opinion, it is not worth spending money on shooting down a rocket just to prove that "you can't roam around in my sky."

"This is military nonsense and a waste of resources, and something that only politicians can come up with," the Polish expert believes.

In Ukraine, experts differed in their assessments.

Oleksiy Kopytko, a former adviser to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, wrote on Facebook that the countries of the alliance, and in particular Poland, lacked the political will to shoot down the missile. He cites the example of Turkey's reaction in a similar situation in 2015.

In his opinion, NATO relies on the fact that Russia does not deliberately shoot at the alliance states, but random episodes and provocations can occur.

"That is, it is not a technical inability/inability to shoot down Russian missiles, but a political decision to evade. Russia sees this and periodically generates such incidents, causing a flurry of criticism against NATO structures. This is a mild form of discrediting," he says.

Kopytko notes that de facto the Russians used the alliance's airspace to attack Ukraine, while the Ukrainians want friendly countries to cover at least part of the western regions of Ukraine with their air defense.

Kopytko recalled that in November 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian military plane that flew into Turkish airspace. According to the Turkish side, the Russian plane was in Turkish airspace for 17.5 seconds, according to the Russians, 6 seconds.

The crew of the plane then ejected, but the sniper pilot was shot from the ground by Syrian rebels. For several months, there was tension in relations between Turkey and Russia, and Russia imposed anti-Turkish sanctions for a while.

"Turkey decided to shoot down. NATO and the Poles (because they can act independently), like the Romanians before, decided to evade the latter. This is a clear demonstration that the countries of Eastern Europe do not believe in receiving help from the Alliance in general and senior comrades, in particular, if a crisis begins. What could be worse for the military-political bloc?", Kopytko writes.

On the other hand, Valery Romanenko, an aviation expert and leading researcher of the State Aviation Museum, said in a comment to BBC Ukraine that it is possible that the Russians directed the missile to the territory of Poland with the aim of provocation, but there was no time to shoot it down so quickly.

"Anti-aircraft missile complexes do not cover the entire territory, they have a limited range, and they are not located like a fence on the border of Ukraine and Poland. Air defense systems are deployed, but mostly near large population centers, they do not completely cover the border, and only they are able to react instantly. They are not placed near the border at all, even if they are 15 km away," explains Romanenko.

He reminds that the NATO anti-aircraft defense system is designed for AVACS (flying radar) and fighter jets, and while guidance was being carried out, the missile had already left the territory of Poland. Even if the planes were already in the air, they should have flown to this area at high speed, but the missile flew only a few kilometers into the territory of Poland and quickly returned to Ukraine.

"It takes a good coincidence of circumstances to shoot down this missile in time. If she had flown further into Poland, no one would have cared - she would have been shot down - by an air defense missile or a fighter jet. No political will is needed for this, it is an attack, the military does not ask the minister in such a situation. If the AVACS operator or the commander of the anti-aircraft unit had given the command to destroy, they would have destroyed, the decision is made at their level, not by politicians," Romanenko believes.