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Poland probes whether own missile hit house during drone intrusion

Poland probes whether own missile hit house during drone intrusion
Polish missile or Russian drone? Poland was investigating Wednesday what kind of projectile damaged a house last week during an intrusion into its airspace by around 20 drones. (AFP/File)
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Updated 17 September 2025

Poland probes whether own missile hit house during drone intrusion

Poland probes whether own missile hit house during drone intrusion
  • Initial suspicion was that debris from a Russian drone, shot down by Polish air defense, had hit the building
  • The house in the village of Wyryki in the east of the country was hit by an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile fired by a Polish F-16 fighter

WARSAW: Polish missile or Russian drone? Poland was investigating Wednesday what kind of projectile damaged a house last week during an intrusion into its airspace by around 20 drones.
Initial suspicion was that debris from a Russian drone, shot down by Polish air defense, had hit the building.
No one on the ground was hurt, but the incident provided some of the most dramatic images of the episode, which escalated tensions between Moscow and the NATO allies — already sky-high over Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
Polish media reports now suggest that the house in the village of Wyryki in the east of the country was hit by an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile fired by a Polish F-16 fighter that was scrambled to hunt the drones.
“The investigation is in its preliminary stage, and we must wait for expert opinion to determine what type of weaponry damaged this house,” Anna Adamiak, spokeswoman for the national prosecutor’s office, told AFP.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has insisted that regardless of what kind of object hit the rural home, responsibility for the incident lies squarely with Moscow.
“All responsibility for the damage caused to the house in Wyryki falls on the perpetrators of the drone provocation, namely Russia,” Tusk declared in a social media post.
“All circumstances of the incident will be communicated to the public, the government, and the president by the relevant services once the investigation is concluded,” he added.
Russia, which launches drone attacks daily against Poland’s neighbor Ukraine, has denied targeting Poland.
According to Adamiak, the investigation into “the violation of Polish airspace” and “endangerment” of people and property concerns all drone intrusions recorded during the night of September 9 to 10.
Poland, a NATO member, and some of its allies deployed aircraft and other military resources to counter the intruding drones, most or all of which were ultimately either shot down or recovered, mainly in the east and center of the country.


French bishop who had a 7-year affair with woman resigns at pope’s urging

French bishop who had a 7-year affair with woman resigns at pope’s urging
Updated 14 sec ago

French bishop who had a 7-year affair with woman resigns at pope’s urging

French bishop who had a 7-year affair with woman resigns at pope’s urging
  • Jean-Paul Gusching cites health issues lay in annoucing his resignation
  • Admits his relationship was consensual, and that “she was a woman of age”

STRASBOURG, France: Pope Leo XIV pressured a French bishop to step down over his “relationships with women,” according to the Vatican, with the defrocked clergyman hitting Wednesday back at the “disgusting” situation.
When announcing his resignation as the Bishop of Verdun in late September, Jean-Paul Gusching had hinted that health issues lay behind the decision to hang up his crosier.
But the Holy See’s embassy to France on Tuesday revealed that those were but “one element” behind that decision, with a preliminary canonical investigation into his behavior underway and the civil courts alerted to the matter.
In an unusual intervention from the Apostolic Nunciature in Paris, the embassy said that after it had alerted the pontiff to the matter, Gusching committed “to avoid in future any behavior toward women that could be interpreted as contrary to his holy vows.”
But “given the ongoing nature of the situation, the Holy Father solicited and accepted his resignation... which took effect on September 27,” the Nunciature added.
A day after the embassy’s statement came to light, Gusching admitted to having a relationship which lasted “from around 2015 to 2022.”
But the ex-bishop said that was “the only affair” he had committed, insisting that the “disgusting” push for his resignation was motivated by “jealousies.”
“They want my head,” the ex-bishop told the local Journal de L’Est republicain paper in an interview published on Wednesday evening.
Asked whether the relationship was consensual, Gusching said: “Yes, she was a woman of age.”
The Vatican has ordered Gusching to “refrain from any liturgical celebrations and public pastoral activities.”
Catholic bishops are strictly forbidden from having any sexual relationships, though the Church has been rocked in recent decades by a litany of child sex abuse scandals.