WARSAW, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Sirens sounded in eastern Poland, military aircraft were scrambled and two airports temporarily suspended flights after Russian strikes on Ukraine came close to the NATO member’s border, Polish and Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday.
The Polish army said that no violation of Polish airspace was recorded and that military aircraft had finished their operations. Airports in Rzeszow and Lublin reopened after their temporary closure.
“A massive attack on the western part of Ukraine — very close to the Polish border — has just ended,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference. “A petrol station was likely hit again, and our aircraft were scrambled.”
Lieutenant Colonel Jacek Goryszewski told private broadcaster TVN24 a drone had crashed or been shot down around 4 kilometres from the Polish border.
A Ukrainian official told Reuters that explosions sounded several kilometres from the border on the Ukrainian side. On Sunday, a Russian drone hit a passenger train just two kilometres from Ukraine-Polish border.
Residents of two eastern regions of Poland received alerts warning them of a risk of aerial attacks and that they should find a safe place.
Local media reported that sirens had sounded. Footage from state news channel TVP Info showed that children in a school in the eastern city of Lublin had been evacuated.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
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