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A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile flew about 100 km into Polish airspace and exploded in a field in the Lublin region on 30 July 2026.
The missile entered Poland during a mass Russian strike on Ukraine involving 74 missiles and 284 drones.
NATO and Poland scrambled Polish F-16s, a NATO A330 refuelling aircraft, a Saab 340 airborne early warning aircraft and an Mi-24 helicopter.
The explosion left a crater about 10 metres wide and 5 metres deep, and Poland summoned the Russian envoy.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there was no indication that Poland had been deliberately targeted.
The Kh-101 is a Russian stealthy, long-range, subsonic cruise missile launched from strategic bombers, with the NATO reporting name AS-23A Kodiak. Being subsonic, it flies slower than the speed of sound but compensates with low-altitude terrain-following flight and a reduced radar cross-section, which makes it hard to detect and intercept. It is designed to strike fixed targets deep behind the front line, and a nuclear-armed variant, the Kh-102, exists. Because such missiles navigate autonomously over long distances, guidance faults or jamming can send them far off course — which is what appears to have carried this one across an international border.
Simple Analogy: It behaves like a small pilotless aircraft flying very low to stay under radar cover, rather than like a ballistic rocket arcing high above the earth.
A collective defence alliance of European and North American states, founded by the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949
GS Paper 2 > International Relations: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings; Effect of Policies of Developed Countries
General Awareness > Weapons Systems and International Security
General Awareness > International Current Affairs
A Russian stealthy long-range subsonic air-launched cruise missile; NATO reporting name AS-23A Kodiak.
The North Atlantic Treaty provision under which an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
A guided missile that flies a sustained, powered, low-altitude path to its target, unlike a ballistic missile which follows a high arcing trajectory.
A codename assigned by NATO to Soviet and Russian equipment for identification purposes.