A Russian SU-24MR military aircraft violated Polish airspace while flying in the Gdansk Bay area of the Baltic Sea on Tuesday.
The plane flew 6.5 km into Polish airspace and stayed there for just over 1 minute before changing course.
Russia justified this violation by saying it was a navigation system failure.
"Polish airspace surveillance services were in contact with the Russian side, which confirmed the violation of Polish airspace and reported that it occurred due to a failure of the aircraft's navigation system. The flight path was changed immediately after the intervention of the navigator of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," the Operational Command of the Polish armed forces explained.
The Russian plane was flying from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad when the incident occurred.
"The Russians have been investigating, testing and experimenting in the Baltics for a long time. It's not a matter of the last few months, it's a matter of the last few years," Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told broadcaster TVN24 late Tuesday.
"It is important that our systems immediately detected this aircraft and that it left our airspace after receiving the message that it had violated it," he added. Siemoniak also underlined that the Polish foreign ministry will assess the situation and respond. (A2 Televizion)
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