Missile explosion in Poland: The 15 hours the planet held its breath

The rocket that fell on Tuesday night on Polish territory, killing two people, caused global alarm. For hours the planet held its breath, while the NATO allies immediately mobilized, meeting today in Brussels, while the leaders of the G7 and the EU held an emergency meeting. Despite the fact, however, that 24 hours have passed since the incident, the question of the origin of the missile is developing into a thriller as the US and NATO talk about a likely Ukrainian missile, while for his part Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists that it was not theirs.

“I have no doubt that it was not our missile,” the Ukrainian president said, according to Interfax Ukraine, speaking to a reporter despite the fact that both NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US President Joe Biden tried to tone down Russia by pointing out that it is probably a Ukrainian missile.

However, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, yesterday’s explosion was caused by a Russian missile, with him underlining that he bases his conclusions on reports from the Ukrainian army which he “can only trust”. Zelensky believes that Ukrainian experts should have already been allowed to go to the site of the explosion. “Do we have a right to be on the team that has undertaken the investigation? Of course,” he said.

NATO-USA: Probably from the Ukrainian air defense the missile

The US and NATO tried to play down the tone early on, arguing that the missile that fell into Polish territory and hit a Polish grain factory, about 6 km from the border with Ukraine, probably came from Ukrainian air defenses.

Washington has seen nothing to contradict Poland’s preliminary assessment that a missile that fell on its territory on Tuesday likely came from Ukrainian air defenses, US National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson said earlier. “Whatever the final conclusions, it is clear that the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia, which has launched a barrage of missile attacks into Ukraine, particularly targeting civilian infrastructure,” Watson said, adding that the Ukraine reserves the right of self-defense.

“The United States has seen nothing that contradicts Poland’s preliminary assessment that the missile was the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in turn at a press conference and emphasized that he has full confidence in the Polish government research.

.@SecDef Austin: “We’re still gathering information but we have seen nothing that contradicts President Duda’s preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland.” pic.twitter.com/oZU8WTSlsB

— CSPAN (@cspan) November 16, 2022

Yesterday, while NATO countries began to speculate that it was a Russian missile, condemning Russian energy and raising the political thermometer, the first cool reaction came from the American president, Joe Biden, who declared that it was “unlikely” that the missile to have been launched from Russia, based on the trajectory. that followed.

A few hours later, the NATO Secretary General agreed with the words of the US president, saying “from the preliminary investigations it appears that it was probably a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile to intercept a Russian one” stressing, however, that it was not Ukraine’s fault. “Russia bears the responsibility as it continues the illegal war in Ukraine,” he said.

Poland: It is possible that the strike is a Russian provocation

“We cannot rule out that the bombing of Ukrainian infrastructure near the border was a deliberate provocation made in the hope that such a situation could arise,” Mateusz Morawiecki told the Polish parliament.

For his part, Polish President Andrzej Duda said there was “no indication” that the missile that landed in Poland on Tuesday was a “deliberate attack” against the country.

“There is no indication that this was a deliberate attack against Poland. Most likely it was a Russian-made S-300 missile. We have no proof at this time that it was a missile fired from the Russian side,” he tweeted on Wednesday.

Ukraine is asking for an investigation at the scene

And while questions about the origin of the missile continue, Kyiv has requested a joint investigation, according to Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. In particular, it requests a joint investigation into the incident with its partners and to take cognizance of the information on which the conclusions of their allies were based and claims that it has evidence of a “Russian trace” in the attack.

But for Ukraine to be able to carry out an investigation, the agreement of Poland and the US is first required. Andrei Duda at a press conference.

Russia denies any involvement – Fire at the EU

Moscow has denied any involvement from the outset citing provocation with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova firing back at the EU demanding Warsaw and the Europeans apologize for the reports.

“The president of Poland called the fall of the missile an ‘accident’. Yesterday we heard the hysteria of Polish officials and politicians. The Polish sections, who allowed themselves anti-Russian attacks and summoned Ambassador (Sergei) Andreyev at midnight, don’t want to apologize?” the representative of the Russian ministry asked via Telegram.

Peskov emphasized in turn that Russia is in no way responsible for this situation. “As for the incident in Poland, Russia has nothing to do with it. Let’s call it quits,” he said.

However, on Wednesday afternoon the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Polish ambassador to Moscow to protest the missile incident and subsequent accusations against Moscow.

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