Warsaw, 29 December 2023 (dpa/MIA) - A Russian missile briefly violated the airspace of NATO member state Poland, the Polish army said on Friday.

"Everything points to the fact that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace. It was tracked by us on radar and also left the airspace again," said Chief of the General Staff Wiesław Kukuła in Warsaw. The comments were made on information made available so far.

The missile was in Polish airspace for around three minutes and flew over 40 kilometres, the army said.

On Friday, Russia delivered the heaviest airstrikes on Ukraine since the beginning of the war. The Ukrainian air force said the country was hit with 158 missiles and combat drones were used.

Among the targets attacked was the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, which is around 70 kilometres from the Polish border. Ukraine has been fending off a Russian full-scale invasion for more than 22 months.

Kukuła said that most of the Russian missiles had been tracked during the night. One of them then flew over the Ukrainian border with Poland.

"We instructed our aircraft to intercept them and shoot them down if necessary." However, this was not possible due to the short time and the way the missile flew. To be on the safe side, however, soldiers are still searching for any debris on the ground along the flight path.

In November 2022, a missile hit a Polish village on the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians. The West assumed that it was a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile that had been deployed in defence against Russian attacks.

Photo: EPA