WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s top police officer told a radio broadcaster that a grenade launcher given to him by Ukrainian authorities accidentally exploded when he was carrying it to his office this week.
General Jaroslaw Szymek made his first comments after the unusual incident to Poland’s Radio RMF FM, which reported it on Saturday.
An explosion rocked the national police headquarters in Warsaw on Wednesday morning. Amidst media reporters speculating over the incident, the Interior Ministry released a statement on Thursday saying that a gift from Ukraine had exploded, and that Szymski and another man suffered minor injuries.
But the statement left many questions unanswered, including what was the current and who caused the explosion.
Szymczyk confirmed reports in the Polish media that the gift was a grenade launcher.
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RMF FM cited police officials as saying that Szymczyk received two used anti-tank grenade launchers as a gift during a recent trip to Ukraine. There were no other details, but the report suggested that neither the Ukrainians nor the Poles believed the launchers had any explosive capability. was converted into a loudspeaker.
“While I was moving the used grenade launchers, which were gifts from the Ukrainians, there was an explosion,” Szymski told the broadcaster. He said the explosion was so powerful that the force of its impact pierced the floor and ceiling.
Szymczyk was initially hospitalized for observation, while the other man, a civilian employee, did not require hospitalization.
Poland is an ally of Ukraine and has offered various forms of assistance, including military and humanitarian aid, to the neighboring country since Russia’s full-scale invasion on 24 February. Poland has also accepted large numbers of Ukrainian refugees.
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