In the village of Przewodow where the missile fell, the security forces blocked access to the point of fall and formed a barrage around the area on Wednesday. And so many questions that arise: where does this missile come from? Who shot it? And why Poland?
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The Polish army was placed on heightened alert after the fall of this missile, probably of Russian manufacture but whose origin still remains unknown, in this village in the south-east of the country, near the border with Ukraine. Polish President Andrzej Duda stressed that at this stage there is no “unequivocal proof“on the origin of the firing of the murderous missile,”An investigation is underway“, he noted, saying that it was an incident “isolated“.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg is due to hold a “emergency meeting“with Alliance Ambassadors.”Allies consult closely” he thus tweeted on Tuesday evening. He is “absolutely essential to avoid the escalation of the war in Ukraine“, urged the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres who called for a “thorough investigation“on the shot.
And for good reason: Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, invaded on February 24 by Russia, is a member of NATO and some 10,000 American soldiers are in the country. Warsaw can therefore invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty which provides for enhanced consultations of its members if one of them considers that its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. This article was already invoked at the very beginning of the war in Ukraine by a group of worried states including the Baltic countries, Romania and already Poland. Its activation can also, at the end of these consultations, result in reinforced defensive military support, as has been done in the past for Turkey. Ankara had obtained the deployment of means of defense against missiles and chemical and biological weapons during the war in Syria.
The invocation of Article 4 is an intermediate step before Article 5: the one that activates a collective defense if a State is attacked. Indeed, Article 5 of the Atlantic Alliance Treaty states that if a Member State is the victim of an armed attack, the others will consider this act of violence as an armed attack directed against all the members and will take the necessary measures deemed necessary to come to the aid of the attacked country. If an attack of Russian origin were confirmed, this would in fact constitute a serious aggravation of the conflict in Ukraine. Moreover, this firing occurred on the evening of a day marked by an intense Russian bombing campaign on Ukrainian infrastructure, described by President Zelensky as “slap in the face of the G20“. This summit is taking place in Indonesia without Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did not even wish to speak there by videoconference. These strikes, which killed at least one person in kyiv, led to widespread power cuts in Ukraine and as far as neighboring Moldova.
However, we are not there yet. In most European capitals, caution remains in order. Still, the tension is palpable: Lithuania and Latvia say this to each other “preoccupied“, certain European States like the Czech Republic say they fear “an escalation“. Only Hungary has convened a defense council. Paris, Berlin, Rome are awaiting clarifications while expressing their support for Warsaw, like Finland, whose president estimated on Twitter that obtaining precise information and confirmed was a “Paramount importance“.