'Military object' found in forest linked to Polish air defense tests, RMF FM reports

A military object found in a Polish forest came from the testing of Poland's air defense systems, private broadcaster RMF FM reported on Thursday, easing concerns it might have been fired from abroad.

RMF, which did not identify its sources, said officials did not yet know what the object was. It had earlier reported without citing sources that the object could be part of an air-to-surface missile and most likely belonged to Poland's army.

Poland has been on alert for possible spillover of weaponry from the war in neighboring Ukraine, especially since two people were killed near the border last November by what Warsaw concluded was a misfired Ukrainian air defense missile.

The area where the object was found this week - around the village of Zamosc near the northern city of Bydgoszcz - is hundreds of kilometers from Poland's borders with Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Poland's defense and justice ministries described it as "military object" without going into further details.

"No traces of explosions or explosives were found at the site of the operations," the Gdansk District Prosecutor's office said in a statement. "Various hypotheses regarding the secured evidence are being investigated."

A digger accompanied by a truck belonging to bomb disposal experts drove down a forest trail to the site on Wednesday, footage from private broadcaster TVN24 showed. By Thursday, the hole, about six meters in diameter, had been filled in with sand.

RMF said that its sources had noted that fighter jets were repaired near the site, which was near an airport used by the Polish military.

The defense ministry said the situation did not threaten residents' safety.

The military police, regional police, the mayor of the village of Zamosc and a government spokesman all declined to comment further.