MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Poland Sergey Andreyev has decided not to appear at the Polish Foreign Ministry due to the Polish side's lack of evidence about Russia's involvement in the incident with a missile that flew into Polish territory.
"They tried to summon me to the Foreign Ministry this morning for a meeting with one of the deputy ministers. They said the topic was yesterday's incident, when an alleged Russian cruise missile crossed the Polish border and stayed in Polish airspace for a full 39 seconds before flying away. I asked if evidence would be presented, and I reminded them that they had already made similar claims last year on December 29. When we asked for evidence, there was no response. But since I understood from the response of my Polish colleagues that there would be no evidence this time too, I considered that in this situation the meeting would be pointless and declined the invitation," Sergey Andreev told TASS.
"Now they intend to send us a note on this issue. This is their right. We will receive it, we will consider it, maybe we will respond," the ambassador noted.
Earlier, the Polish Armed Forces reported a violation of the country's airspace on the border with Ukraine in the early morning of March 24. They claimed that it was a Russian cruise missile. According to the Polish command, the missile, allegedly launched by Russian long-range aviation, flew into Polish airspace near the village of Ozerdow in the Lublin Province on the border with Ukraine and left after 39 seconds. No proof of these claims has been provided.
Late December last year, the operational command reported that Polish air borders had been violated by an unknown object, leading Polish President Andrzej Duda to call an emergency meeting with the Defense Ministry leadership. The chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, General Wieslaw Kukula, claimed that a Russian missile appeared in the airspace of the country. Following an inspection of the area where the missile was seen entering the airspace from Ukraine, Polish servicemen did not find anything that posed a threat.