Dominique Trinquant, former head of the French military mission to the UN, estimated Tuesday evening November 15 on franceinfo that he “keep calm” after suspicions of Russian strikes on Poland a few hours earlier. NATO says “examine” information about possible Russian missile falls in the country.
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franceinfo: Do these potentially Russian strikes in Poland worry you?
Dominique Trinquant: You have to keep calm. The investigation will quickly determine if these are indeed Russian missiles. If so, it is likely to be missile guidance errors and not a deliberate attempt to hit Poland. At that point, Russia will have to explain itself, to point out the fact that it was not their will, as the Minister of Defense has just done, to strike Poland. But it shows once again that the guidance of Russian missiles is problematic, even if they can come up with an excuse like “the GPS signals are jammed by the Westerners and that’s why our missiles don’t work well”.
What scenarios can explain this? Could it be debris?
There were a hundred strikes in Ukraine today. It is likely that the Ukrainian air defense defended itself well, perhaps it hit a missile that deviated at that time and went further, jamming systems interfered with the guidance system missiles… There are excuses and explanations of this type. I think, after the reaction of the Russian Minister of Defense, that there was no desire for escalation on the part of Russia and they will have to recognize that it is a mistake on their part, which they haven’t done yet.
What are the possible consequences?
The consequences could be “strong protest”, as we say in UN language, protests on the fact that this is inadmissible and that it must not be repeated, that Russia must take measures and stop these strikes and not make that kind of mistake. I think there will be threats of this type. I don’t think there is any escalation, but we really have to wait for the reaction of the Russians.
Is there a risk of escalation?
No, I don’t believe so. Nobody has any interest in it. Neither the Russians of course, because by attacking NATO the escalation is damaging for themselves. On the NATO side, you have to keep your cool while marking the event vis-à-vis the Russians. There will probably be a unanimous statement from NATO that the Russian game is extremely dangerous. and recalling that any crossing of the NATO line will cause very significant destruction for the Russians. I think that there will be a joint declaration by all the Europeans within NATO on this subject.