(Warsaw) A missile of unknown origin killed two people in the Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine, heavily bombarded by the Russian army. Here is a summary of what is known about the fall of this missile.
What happened ?
A missile hit the Polish village of Przewodow, about six kilometers from the Ukrainian border, on Tuesday afternoon, killing two men. The Gazeta.pl news site reports that the explosion occurred around 5 p.m. local time (10 a.m. EST) at a grain drying facility near a school.
The missile fell as Russia carried out massive strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on Tuesday, which left millions of homes without power. Russian missiles hit cities across the country, including Lviv (west), near the Polish border.
Who fired the missile?
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, was immediately flagged as a suspect. But Polish President Andrzej Duda said there was no clear evidence as to who fired the missile, which was “most likely Russian-made”.
US President Joe Biden, at the G20 summit in Bali (Indonesia), said it was “improbable” that he was fired from Russia and assured that he would “determine what happened exactly “.
The Kremlin hailed the “restraint” of the American reaction.
What are the consequences ?
The explosion raises fears that NATO, which Poland joined in 1999, could be drawn into the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Poland is protected by NATO’s collective defense commitment, formalized in Article 5 of its founding treaty, but the reaction of the Atlantic Alliance will be calibrated according to the accidental or intentional nature of the incident.
An emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors was underway Wednesday morning to take stock of the situation in Poland. The latter placed its armed forces on heightened alert following the explosion. She also summoned the Russian ambassador for “immediate detailed explanations”.
Who said what?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the missile strike a “message from Russia to the G20 summit” underway in Indonesia.
Russia said it had “nothing to do” in the incident, assuring Wednesday that the missile had “unequivocally” been fired by an S-300 defense system of the Ukrainian forces.
“High-precision strikes were carried out only on the territory of Ukraine at a distance of more than 35 kilometers from the Ukrainian-Polish border,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Debris found in Poland “has been positively identified by Russian specialists […] as an element of an anti-aircraft guided missile of the S-300 air defense systems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” he added.
Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder also said in a statement that the explosion in Poland was due to “Ukrainian air defense systems, used to counter Russian missiles”. “Investigations are continuing, currently there is nothing to indicate that this is a deliberate attack,” added the minister.
The leaders of the great powers of the G7 (United States, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Japan) had previously held an emergency meeting on the subject on the sidelines of the G20. They expressed their solidarity with Poland, but also called for caution pending the outcome of an investigation.
“Important that all facts are established,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg tweeted.