Belarus says Polish helicopter violated its airspace, Warsaw denies

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Belarus on Thursday said a Polish helicopter had violated its airspace but Warsaw said none of its helicopters had crossed the border between the two countries.

Tense relations between the neighbors have been further strained by Belarusian ally Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

"Around 1520 (1220 GMT) the aircraft crossed the border of the Republic of Belarus, flew to a depth of up to 1.5 kilometres. At 1622, the helicopter repeatedly violated the state border, going 300 metres deep," the Ministry of Defence of Belarus said on its Telegram channel.

Belarus, Russia's closest ally, said it had scrambled military aircraft in response.

"The Operational Command unequivocally denies these reports," a spokesperson of the Operational Command of the Armed Forces of Poland told Reuters. "None of the Polish helicopters crossed the airspace of Belarus."

Belarus' foreign ministry said it had summoned the Polish charge d'affaires, Marcin Wojciechowski, to protest.

According to the ministry, Minsk has demanded Warsaw conduct "an objective investigation into the incident" and take measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

(Writing by Maxim Rodionov; Additional reporting by Anna Koper in Warsaw; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Ron Popeski, Nick Zieminski and Daniel Wallis)