WARSAW (Reuters) -A drone which crashed into a field in eastern Poland most likely came from the direction of Belarus, a regional prosecutor said on Thursday, following the incident described as a provocation by the defence minister.
The military drone fell into a cornfield overnight on Tuesday, scorching crops, shattering windows in nearby homes and adding to tensions at a crucial period in efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
“There is a very high probability … that the object probably came from Belarus,” Lublin regional prosecutor Grzegorz Trusiewicz told reporters.
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday that initial findings of the investigation and some experts suggested a Russian version of the Shahed drone developed by Iran was involved in the latest incident.
Trusiewicz said he was unable to confirm the model of drone involved.
The embassy of Belarus in Warsaw did not immediately respond to a request for comment. There was no comment from the Russian embassy.
Close Russian ally Belarus has backed Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Early on Thursday, the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said jets were scrambled due to Russian strikes on western Ukraine. However, it said that no violation of Polish airspace was observed.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish;Editing by Helen Popper)
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