Mysterious drone found in Polish coal mine near Konin. Deputy PM Kosiniak-Kamysz points to 'adversaries from the east'

An unmanned aerial vehicle was found on Thursday, March 12, 2026, on the premises of an open-pit mine in the town of Galczyce in Konin County. The object was discovered by an employee of Kopalnia Węgla Brunatnego Konin, who immediately notified the relevant services. The District Prosecutor's Office in Konin, which took over supervision of the case, confirmed that the device was not armed and did not contain any explosives or dangerous materials. The inspection of the site where the drone was found and the object itself lasted many hours and was concluded by investigators on the night of March 12-13. According to preliminary findings by the prosecutor's office, the drone's construction is primitive and was made mainly of plywood. The services secured the find for further technical examinations, which are to clarify the exact origin and purpose of the machine.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz commented on the incident, suggesting the device may have been used by foreign services. The head of the defence ministry indicated that the object's characteristics suggest it was carrying out a mission on behalf of entities referred to as adversaries from the east. The construction was described by investigators as a decoy, a technique often used in hybrid operations. Reports have also emerged, repeated among others by the Polish Press Agency, that the drone may have been on Polish territory for a long time. One of the main hypotheses assumes the find is linked to a violation of Polish airspace that occurred in September of last year. In recent years, Poland has repeatedly recorded incidents related to violations of its airspace by objects approaching from the eastern direction. The most serious of these occurred in 2024, when radar systems tracked unidentified objects entering the territory of the Lublin Voivodeship. The incident in Galczyce fits into a series of discoveries of drone wreckage that, after losing communication or running out of fuel, fall onto uninhabited areas such as forests or industrial sites.

The investigation conducted by the District Prosecutor's Office in Konin aims to determine how the drone ended up on the mine premises and how long it had been lying there. Due to its location deep within the country, the case is of particular interest to services responsible for state security. Military experts are to analyze the device's electronic components, if any survived, to try to reconstruct its flight path. Although the object resembles military constructions, its plywood construction suggests low-cost mass production, characteristic of equipment meant to overload surveillance systems. „Wszystko wskazuje na to, że mamy do czynienia z obiektem, który miał służyć adwersarzom ze wschodu do rozpoznania lub zmylenia naszych systemów” (Everything indicates that we are dealing with an object that was meant to serve adversaries from the east for reconnaissance or misleading our systems) — Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz via PAP Chronology of the Galczyce incident: March 12, morning — Object discovery; March 12, afternoon — Site secured; March 13, night — Conclusion of on-site work; March 13, morning — MoD statement