Poland Closes Investigation Into Russian Drone Intrusions — Perpetrators Not Identified

The Polish military prosecutor’s office has closed the investigation into the mass violation of the country’s airspace by Russian drones in September 2025 due to the inability to identify specific perpetrators.

This was reported by Prosecutor Marcin Kozak, a spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, to the publication Rzeczpospolita.

According to the prosecutor, the case was closed precisely because the person directly responsible for the crime could not be identified.

“The investigation was terminated because the perpetrator of the crime—which consisted of violating Polish airspace and thereby posing a threat to public safety—could not be identified,” the prosecutor stated.

Most of the case files, including the rationale for the decision to close the case, are classified. Therefore, the prosecutor’s office is not publicly disclosing details regarding the established flight paths, the methods used to control individual drones, or exactly which drones were shot down by Polish and allied forces.

At the same time, the decision to close the criminal investigation due to the failure to identify a specific perpetrator does not mean that Polish authorities deny the drones’ Russian origin.

A separate part of the investigation involved reviewing the actions of the Polish military during the interception of the drones. The prosecutor’s office concluded that the military acted within their authority and had legal grounds to open fire to destroy the aerial targets.

As a reminder, on the night of September 9–10, 2025, more than 30 unmanned aerial vehicles flew into Polish territory. Their wreckage and intact drones were later found in 27 settlements. Some of the UAVs were Russian Gerbera drones.

Polish SIM cards were found in the drones

One of the findings of the investigation was the discovery of SIM cards from Polish mobile operators in some of the Russian drones.

The prosecutor’s office has not disclosed how these cards ended up in the drones—this part of the case file also remains classified.

The use of SIM cards in drones potentially allows for the use of civilian cellular networks to transmit telemetry, navigation data, or other information, depending on the drone’s configuration.

Earlier, Militarnyi reported on data from InformNapalm regarding the use by Russian drone operators of Belarus’s civilian cellular infrastructure. Analysts linked these actions, in particular, to testing the feasibility of routing drones toward Poland.

A separate investigation concerned an incident in the village of Wyryki-Wola, where, during an operation to intercept drones, a missile fired by the Polish Air Force accidentally struck a residential building. On September 10, 2026, the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin officially closed this case.

According to reports that emerged on September 11, 2025, at least five Russian UAVs may have been heading toward the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport—one of the main logistics hubs through which Western military aid is supplied to Ukraine.

On September 14, in Poland near the village of Rusinowo, the military detected a Russian drone in the Baltic Sea that was equipped with a warhead.