'Likely an accident from Ukrainian air defenses' The latest on the missile strike that killed two in Poland
On November 15, Polish media reported that two missiles had hit the village of Przewodów in the country’s Lublin province, just three miles from the Ukrainian border. One missile hit a grain elevator, killing two people. Polish authorities, NATO leadership, and world leaders at the G20 summit in Bali held emergency meetings to discuss the incident. Ukrainian authorities believe Russia, which spent all of the day of the strike shelling cities throughout Ukraine, is responsible for the missiles, while Moscow has denied responsibility. On Wednesday, however, Poland's president said the incident was probably an accident from Ukrainian air defense forces working to intercept incoming Russian missiles. Here’s what we know so far.
Poland's Foreign Ministry summoned the country's Russian Ambassador in response to the missile hitting Przewodów. According to Polish authorities, the missile was made in Russia.
“On November 15, 2022, another hours-long massive shelling attack was conducted across all of Ukraine’s territory by the Russian Armed Forces. At 15:40 in the village of Przewodów in the Lublin province, a Russian-made missile landed, killing two Polish citizens. Due to this incident, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau summoned the Russian Ambassador to Poland and demanded an immediate, detailed explanation,” read the ministry’s statement.
Polish President Andrzej Duda later said that the incident was likely an accident. "There's no sign that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely, this was a Russian-made rocket that was manufactured in the 1970s. There's no indication that it was launched by Russian forces. There's a high probability that it was a Ukrainian air defense missile," he said on November 16.
U.S. President Joe Biden said it’s “unlikely” that the missile that landed in Poland was launched from Russian territory. “I don't want to say that until we completely investigate it but it is unlikely [...] that it was fired from Russia, but we'll see,” he told journalists after an emergency meeting with world leaders in Bali, where a G20 summit is being held.
U.S. officials reportedly believe that the missile was launched by the Ukrainian military. Three sources from the U.S. government who spoke anonymously to the Associated Press said that the missile was likely fired by Ukrainian troops at an incoming Russian missile amid Russia’s widescale attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday.
According to CNN, a NATO aircraft managed to track the trajectory of the missile that landed in Poland and relayed the information to Warsaw and other NATO members.
On Wednesday, Biden notified other G7 and NATO member states that the “blast in Poland had been caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile,” Reuters reported, citing a NATO source.
The Ukrainian President’s Office initially blamed Russia for the incident. In a video address on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky said that “terror is not limited to our state borders,” adding that it was “only a matter of time that Russian terror would go further.”
The longer Russia feels impunity, the greater the threat will be for everyone in reach of Russian missiles. To fire missiles at NATO territory! This is a Russian missile strike on collective security! This is a significant escalation. We need to act.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he believes Russia was not involved in the missile crash. “I have to respect Russia’s statement, in which it said that this was not its missile,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the incident in Poland "wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Russia's war against Ukraine, if it weren't for the missiles that are now being used to intensively shell Ukrainian infrastructure on a wide scale." UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a similar statement, saying, "This is the cruel and unrelenting reality of Putin’s war. As long as it goes on it poses a threat to our security and that of our allies."
The Russian Defense Ministry called reports that Russia was involved in the incident a “deliberate provocation,” saying, “There were no strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border by Russian weapons.”
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called the incident in Poland a “Ukrainian ‘missile strike,’” writing on Twitter, “The situation with the Ukrainian ‘missile strike’ on a Polish farm proves just one thing: the West, with its hybrid war against Russia, is raising the odds of a world war.”
Later on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a press briefing that Russian military specialists have “definitively identified” the missiles that hit Przewodów as Ukrainian S-300 missiles. Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov called Western countries’ reaction to the incident “hysterical and Russophobic,” claiming that “the Poles had every possible means of immediately reporting that the wreckage in question belonged to an S-300 missile. And all experts would immediately have understood that this could not be a missile with any connection to the Russian military.”