A retired Polish couple were glued to their TVs as news broke out early Wednesday about Russian drones entering their nation’s airspace — with one of the unmanned aerial vehicles crashing into their house.
Tomasz and Alicja Wesolowski were inside their house in Wyryki, just a few miles from the Ukrainian border, when they suddenly found themselves in the middle of a major international incident that wrecked their family home.
“I turned on the TV, and all the news was about this massive drone flight, and after a while, I heard a plane flying over, and suddenly, it seemed to descend more rapidly, and the roar grew louder,” Tomasz told Reuters.
“And suddenly something boomed, the light fell from the ceiling in the downstairs living room,” he added. “I looked out the window, and there were sheets of metal flying from the roof.
“I ran out into the yard, and I saw the whole roof in shreds; everything was destroyed.”
Alicja said the crash left her and her husband in shock as she feared that they were in the middle of a bombing and that the two were about to be killed by a plane flying overhead.
Fortunately for the couple, no one was hurt in the incident.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that 19 objects entered the country’s airspace overnight, with several shot down in what the military called an “unprecedented” threat.
Polish and NATO officials condemned the incident as a major escalation by Russia, which denied that it deliberately flew the drones into the country.
While a majority of the drones were shot down or crashed near the border, at least two of them made it as far as 100 miles into Poland, local officials said.
Poland has since requested to activate Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which calls for the alliance to meet after any member country believes its territory, political independence or security is threatened.
With Post wires
