Andrzej Duda Reacted To Belarusian Spy Balloon Over Poland

There were no such events for many decades in Poland.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, while observing the Anaconda-23 exercises at the Central Air Force Range in Ustka, commented on the spy balloon that flew from Belarus to Poland on May 13.

According to Wprost, Andrzej Duda assured the public that Poland is safe.

“Everyone strives to fulfil their duties in the best possible way,” said the President of Poland. "We know that there are different situations because we have never experienced such a time before. The war has never been so close to us, we have never felt it so real. It creates many different, difficult situations and provocative acts. At least those that we see during the last hours, when we hear that some objects are flying to Poland from Belarus.”

Andrzej Duda said that they are monitoring the objects and drawing conclusions from each development and estimating security threats. The head of the Polish state stressed several times that the latest situations are new for the country.

“Poland and the Polish army have not seen such events on and over our territory for many decades. There are procedures that we verify, compare, and analyze. Some have so far functioned better and we were recovering them if something was wrong. Others did not function because it was not necessary. There are situations when certain procedures are run for the first time. I am glad that many people are monitoring the security of Poland,” said Andrzej Duda. He also said that he could not talk about some things for the sake of secrecy.

There were reports that, on the morning of May 13, the Polish MoD announced that an unknown object had been spotted in the airspace. It had arrived from Belarus. It was probably a spy balloon. It followed from the MoD message that the balloon flew over half of Poland.

The object disappeared from radar when it was near Rypin, a city in the north-central part of the country. There are about 260 kilometres from there to the nearest point on the border with Belarus. Poland initiated a search operation to find the balloon.