A mysterious ‘military object’ found in a Polish forest last month was actually a Russian missile, it has been reported.
The supposed KH-55 rocket was spotted near the town of Zamość, about nine miles from Bydgoszcz in the last week of April.
At the time, speculation spread on social media about its origins, with broadcaster RMF FM describing it as air-to-surface missile measuring at least several metres, stuck in the ground, with its head missing.
This is one of the two Polish outlets who have today said that the object was an a KH-55 missile.
Journalists said this was determined in the preliminary findings of Poland’s Air Force Institute of Technology’s investigation.
Polsat News reported the same thing but neither named their sources.
The KH-55, which is referred to as CH-55 in Polish, is an air-launched cruise missile developed by the Soviet Union that is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
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It is believed the rocket found last month landed in Polish territory last December, before it was discovered by a ‘random witness’ around three months later.
Poland has been on high alert for possible spill over of weaponry from the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
In November, two people were killed near the border by what Warsaw concluded was a misfired Ukrainian air defence missile.
The area where the object was found is hundreds of miles from the borders with Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
These types of incidents raise anxieties and long-held fears that the Russian war in Ukraine could spill out into Poland, a NATO member.
Metro.co.uk has contacted the Polish government and Poland’s Air Force Institute of Technology for comment.
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