Alleged Russian missile strikes Poland, risk of direct NATO involvement increases
16 Nov 2022 11:32:52
Przewodow, Nov 16: A missile, suspected to be Russian-made, struck a village in eastern Poland yesterday, killing two people and sparking fears of an escalation in the Ukraine conflict.
The Polish foreign ministry said the rocket fell at Przewodow, a village in eastern Poland about 6 km from the border with Ukraine. Media reports said the strike hit a grain-drying facility.
Poland president Andrzej Duda said there was no clear evidence of who fired the missile, adding that it was "most probably Russian-made". "We do not for the moment have unequivocal evidence of who fired the missile," he said. The Polish foreign ministry had earlier said the missile was Russian-made and summoned Russia's ambassador to Warsaw to give "immediate detailed explanations".The missile strike prompted an emergency meeting at the G20 summit currently underway in Bali, Indonesia. The meeting led by US president Joe Biden was attended by major powers of the West, among others. Besides the US, leaders of Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom took part in the meeting. All except Japan are members of NATO. Following the meeting, Biden said the US and its NATO allies are investigating the blast that killed two in Poland, but early information suggests it may not have been caused by a missile fired from Russia, according to news agency Reuters. Asked whether it was too early to say that the missile was fired from Russia, Biden said: "There is preliminary information that contests that. I don't want to say that until we completely investigate it but it is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia but we'll see." Earlier, Warsaw put its military on high alert after an emergency national security council meeting. "There has been a decision to raise the state of readiness of some combat units and other uniformed services," spokesman Piotr Muller told reporters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier said two Russian missiles hit Poland in what he described as "a very significant escalation".
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has rejected as a "conspiracy theory" the idea that the Poland blast may have been caused by surface-to-air missiles fired by Kyiv's forces, while Russia's defence ministry dismissed reports that it was to blame as a "provocation".