Russia may have deliberately allowed a missile to land on Polish territory to test NATO’s response and heighten tensions among Ukraine’s allies.
Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, director of development at a defense enterprise and a reserve Air Force officer, expressed this view in an interview with Ukrinform.
“Russia will continue to try to create such situations to test NATO’s resilience: What the reaction will be, whether there will be consequences, and whether allies are ready to strengthen their support for Ukraine,” Khrapchynskyi said.
In his view, given the recent strained relations between Ukraine and Poland, Russia’s actions may have been deliberate.
“In my opinion, these actions were deliberate on the part of the Russian Federation to conduct yet another test of Europe’s and NATO’s coordination regarding Ukraine,” the expert noted.
Khrapchynskyi emphasized that the consequences of Russia’s war are increasingly spilling over beyond Ukraine’s borders. He recalled the recent violation of Romania’s airspace, when the country was forced to scramble fighter jets to intercept Russian drones.
“Countries bordering Ukraine must understand that the consequences of the war could affect them as well,” he emphasized.
According to the officer, these incidents once again demonstrate the need to create a unified, integrated air defense system for European states, which would allow for a more effective response to air threats and better coordination among allies.
Assessing the Russian Federation’s latest massive attack on Ukraine, Khrapchynskyi noted that Russian troops were attempting to weaken the Kyiv region’s air defense system to subsequently launch strikes against Ukraine’s western regions.
“For a long time, the enemy has been trying to knock out the Kyiv region’s air defense, counting on the fact that we would be forced to redeploy all our resources to central Ukraine and would then be unable to repel strikes on the Vinnytsia, Lviv, or Ternopil regions,” he explained.
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The expert emphasized that Ukraine’s air defense has demonstrated high effectiveness in combating cruise missiles and drones, but the problem of ballistic missiles remains a pressing issue.
“Russia is actively using not only ballistic missiles but also missiles with similar flight trajectories, in particular the Zircon missiles, as well as modified S-300 missiles,” said Khrapchynskyi.
According to him, this is precisely why Ukraine continues to work with its partners to increase the supply of missiles for the Patriot systems, as this remains one of the key elements of Ukraine’s air defense.
As reported by Ukrinform, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that during the massive Russian missile attack on Ukraine on the night of July 29–30, one of the Russian Kh-101 cruise missiles violated Polish airspace and crashed approximately 50 kilometers from Lublin.