It was a moment that everyone feared since February 24, the day the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, that the war would spread beyond the Ukrainian borders.
By Athena Papakosta
The small village of Przewodow with just 500 inhabitants on the Polish-Ukrainian border became the center of the world when a Soviet-designed missile fell at noon on Tuesday, killing two Polish citizens. The world “froze”, as the first information spoke of a Russian strike on a NATO member country, which could escalate the conflict and cause the Alliance to be involved in a war with Russia.
It was a moment everyone had been dreading since February 24, the day the Russian invasion of Ukrainethat is, that the war will spread beyond the Ukrainian borders.
The Chronicles
The West reacted by calling for calm until the thriller cleared up, Poland launched an investigation, while considering triggering Article 4 of the Alliance’s founding treaty, and boosted the readiness of its armed forces and air defenses.
Kyiv pointed to Moscow, which from the first moment denied any involvement, speaking of provocations.
NATO held an emergency meeting with the Organization’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, noting that “according to our preliminary analysis, the incident was most likely caused by a missile of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft system which was fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missiles.”
For its part, the United States has maintained a wait-and-see attitude, avoiding blaming Russia. President Biden himself from Bali, Indonesia, had already considered it “unlikely” that the missile was launched by Russia since early Wednesday.
In the end, Warsaw called it an “unfortunate incident” pointing out that “there are absolutely no signs of a deliberate attack on Poland.”
For an entire evening, the world was on the verge of a generalization of the Ukrainian conflict until the alarm was lifted.
And yet some still fear the worst
“But what if this or a similar event turned out to be a deliberate operation by the Russians? “What kind of protection would the United States and other Alliance allies provide?”, asks the British newspaper The Guardian. According to Article 5 of the founding Treaty of the Alliance “an attack against an ally shall be considered an attack against all allies”.
But now that the worst is averted, how safe does Poland feel that it counts two dead, even after a “sad accident” or any other NATO Member State on its eastern side?
Poland has been living in fear of Russia for nine months. Last March, 84% of Poles said they feared the war in Ukraine would spread to the country.
The same fear is reflected in the first declarations of the Baltic countries: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which lived – for at least half a century – as part of the Soviet Union and although today they are in NATO still fear that they will meet its fate Ukrainian. For Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, a Russian attack seems unlikely but not impossible. Riga immediately spoke of a crime and called for the activation of Article 4, while Tallinn and Vilnius declared that they were ready to defend every inch of NATO territory.
Kiev-West dispute
The West is asking for calm while investigations are underway at the scene with the Americans helping the Poles. For the US and NATO, the tragic incident is a result of the barrage of missile attacks launched by Russia on various Ukrainian cities on Tuesday. At the same time, in their preliminary analysis, they say together with Poland that the incident was probably caused by a missile of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft system, but they do not blame Kyiv since they consider that it was defending Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine, however, insists on the Russian missiles and requests a joint investigation into the incident. Volodymyr Zelensky disputes this preliminary analysis by NATO, the US and Poland and insists on blaming Moscow. The Ukrainian side requests to be informed of the information on which the conclusions of its allies were based.
Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine said: “If some missile fragments killed these people we should apologize but, excuse me, first we want access to the data you have. We want to know them.”
Kyiv is at odds with the West for the first time publicly, with Zelensky on Wednesday sticking to his original claims, citing information he has from the chief of the Ukrainian air force and the chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, stressing, according to the Financial Times, that “it makes no sense not to trust them. I fight with them.”
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
