Poland investigates two drone crashes near borders with Ukraine and Belarus

Polish authorities are investigating two separate crashes of unidentified drones in the Lublin region in early September 2025, one near the Belarus border crossing at Polatycze and another close to the Ukrainian frontier near Majdan-Sełce. Officials say neither object carried explosives. 

First incident near Polatycze 

Early on September 8, 2025, the local police department, Policja Bialska, announced in a statement that the duty officer at the Terespol police station received a report from border guard officers regarding debris from an unidentified flying object that had reportedly crashed overnight. 

“We notified the authorities and the District Prosecutor’s Office in Biała Podlaska about the incident,” police said. 

Agnieszka Kępka, Prosecutor of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, confirmed in a statement seen by local news outlet WP Wiadomości that the drone crashed in a cornfield approximately 300 meters from the border crossing in Biała Podlaska County, Lublin. Kępka added the device was unarmed and bore Cyrillic markings.  

The prosecutor’s office said it has also secured the first CCTV recordings, which are currently being analyzed. Kępka said she hopes that residents “will be able to provide some information regarding the flight trajectory or other circumstances”.  

On August 8, 2025, Polish journalist Wojciech Sumlinski shared on X that the drone had crashed 30 kilometers away from his home in Polatycze, close to Terespol. He also mentioned that he is beginning to “get used to drones crashing only in open fields”. 

Second drone near Majdan-Sełce 

A second incident was reported on September 6, 2025, when another drone was discovered near the village of Majdan-Sełce in Lublin Voivodeship, approximately 500 meters from residential buildings. 

The District Prosecutor’s Office in Zamość said that the drone was made of lightweight material resembling foam and carried neither explosives nor contraband. Forensic experts have taken custody of the wreckage for further examination. 

Local officials raised concerns that the aircraft went undetected by surveillance systems. Henryk Karwan, governor of the Lublin region, acknowledged the gap and said authorities hoped to establish the drone’s origin, with initial suspicions pointing to Ukrainian rather than Belarusian airspace. 

Official assessments 

Authorities in both cases said the drones were not military. “The drone did not contain any elements that would indicate it was a military or combat drone,” Prosecutor Agnieszka Kępka said about the Polatycze incident. 

“It did not have any military characteristics,” the spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense said about the Majdan-Sełce incident. Authorities suggest instead that it was a smuggling drone, though no contraband was found aboard. 

However, pictures shared by TVN24 strongly suggest that the unidentified object in Majdan-Sełce is a Russian-made “Gerbera” decoy drone, used to overload air defense systems during attacks on Ukraine. 

A similar scenario played out on July 10, 2025, when a drone found near the border with Belarus was initially believed by the authorities to be a smuggling drone, but turned out to be one of Russia’s Gerbera UAV. 

Other recent NATO airspace incidents 

The discovery of drones in Polatycze and Majdan-Sełce comes amid a series of similar episodes along NATO’s eastern borders. 

In July 2025, two Russian-designed Gerbera drones entered Lithuania. One crashed near the border and another flew over the capital Vilnius before eventually crashing inside a military training ground while carrying an explosive payload of two kilograms. Both incidents involved Gerbera-type drones resembling the Iranian-made Shahed loitering munitions. 

On August 20, 2025, an unidentified object fell from the sky and detonated in a cornfield in the village of Osiny, eastern Poland, damaging nearby buildings.  

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More recently, two incursions of Polish airspace by drones occurred overnight from September 2 to 3, 2025, during a large-scale Russian strike against Ukraine. 

The incidents coincide with preparations for the joint Russian-Belarusian exercise Zapad 2025, set to begin on September 12, 2025, raising fears of further drone-related violations along NATO’s eastern flank. In response, Lithuania has imposed a temporary flight ban along part of its border with Belarus, citing security concerns. The post Poland investigates two drone crashes near borders with Ukraine and Belarus appeared first on AeroTime.

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