WARSAW (Reuters) -A Russian SU-24MR military jet flew into Polish airspace in the Gdansk bay area of the Baltic Sea on Tuesday due to what Russia said was a navigation system failure, the Operational Command of the Polish armed forces said.
The plane flew 6.5 km (4 miles) into Polish airspace and stayed there for a little over 1 minute before changing its course, Operational command said on X.
The Polish services supervising the airspace 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 navigation system of the aircraft, it said.
“The flight route was immediately changed after the intervention of the navigator of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” the Polish army command said.
The jet was operating a flight from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, it said.
“Russians have long been probing, trying and testing in the Baltic. It’s not a matter of the last few months, it’s a matter of last few years,” Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told TVN24 broadcaster late on Tuesday.
“It’s important that our systems have detected this plane immediately and that it left our airspace after getting the message that it was violated.”
Siemoniak added that Polish foreign ministry will assess the situation and respond.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Alison Williams and Lisa Shumaker)
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