[UPDATED: Aug. 20, 7:33 pm , Kyiv time. Update: Polish authorities have confirmed that the drone was a Russian-made Shahed.]

A Russian Shahed drone flew into Poland on early Wednesday morning, Aug. 20, and exploded near a settlement, shattering windows of multiple houses in its vicinity.

The drone exploded in the village of Osiny in Poland’s Lublin region, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Ukrainian border, west of the regional capital Lublin.

While initial reports left the drone’s origin unclear, Polish officials later confirmed it was a Russian-made Shahed analogue, likely the domestically produced Geran.

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Local police told Polish outlet PAP that an explosion was recorded at around 2 a.m. local time, after which authorities found “burnt metal and plastic debris scattered over a radius of several dozen metres.”

The police officer told PAP that windows were shattered in multiple homes but no one was injured.

PAP, citing its source at the defense ministry, initially said the drone is likely a decoy drone.

“The source specified that it was a military drone, but without a warhead and containing only a small amount of explosives, designed to engage anti-aircraft defense systems and divert them from actual combat drones,” the outlet wrote.

But the military confirmed that no airspace incursion was recorded alongside the Ukrainian and Belarusian border that night, leaving the origin of the drone uncertain.

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz later confirmed the drone to be Russian, while a foreign ministry official said it was the Russian version of the Iran-made Shahed drones.

“Russia is provoking us once again. We are dealing with a Russian drone,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said, according to Euronews.

“Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media that the drone was a Russian version of the Shahed model, which is produced by Iran,” the outlet wrote, adding that the drone had a Chinese engine installed, citing the Polish military.

Initally, there were different official accounts as to the nature of the drone.

“Examination of the explosion indicates that the... object is most likely a military drone,” Lublin regional prosecutor Grzegorz Trusiewicz said, according to Reuters.

But Kosiniak-Kamysz earlier said it is unclear if the drone is used by a foreign military or used for smuggling operations, though he does not rule out potential sabotage.

“And we should not rule out... acts of sabotage on the territory of the Republic of Poland,” he said.

In 2023, a Ukrainian air defense missile killed two in Poland while intercepting a Russian airstrike.

What’s a Shahed?

The Shahed “kamikaze drone,” known also by its Russian nomenclature as the Geran-2, is more properly classified as a one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicle (OWA UAV).

It has a cropped delta-wing shape, with a central fuselage blending into the wings and stabilizing rudders at the tips. The nose section contains the warhead while the engine sits in the rear of the fuselage, where it drives a two-bladed pusher propeller. Weighing in at about 200 kilograms, it is 3.5 meters long with a 2.5-meter wingspan and flies at over 185 kilometers an hour.

Shahed is Iranian for “Witness,” and the UAV takes its name from its designer, Shahed Aviation Industries. Its first recorded use was in a 2019 Iranian attack by up to 25 Shahed UAVs against oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia.