Poland missile hit is Ukrainian stray – NATO, Warsaw

NATO and Poland say the missile that hit Poland was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences and not a Russian strike, easing global concern that the war in Ukraine could spill across the border.

“From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side.

 “It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence.” Polish President Andrzej Duda said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also said it was likely to have been a Ukrainian air defence missile.

Nevertheless, Stoltenberg said that Moscow, not Kyiv was ultimately to blame, for starting the war in the first place and launching the attack that triggered Ukraine’s defences.

“This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” NATO’s Chief told reporters in Brussels.

NATO ambassadors were holding emergency talks to respond to Tuesday’s blast that killed two people at a grain facility in Poland near the Ukrainian border, the war’s first deadly spillover onto the territory of the Western military alliance.

Also Read: Poland blast: NATO, G7 to maintain close contact

Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden had said the trajectories suggested the missile was unlikely to have been fired from Russia.

The incident occurred while Russia was firing scores of missiles at cities across Ukraine, in what Ukraine says was the biggest volley of such strikes of the nine-month war.

Kyiv says it shot down most of the incoming Russian missiles with its own air defence missiles.

Ukraine’s Volyn region, just across the border from Poland, was one of many Ukraine says was targeted by Russia’s countrywide attacks.

The Russian Defence Ministry said none of its missiles had struck closer than 35 km (20 miles) from the Polish border, and that photos of the wreckage in Poland showed elements of a Ukrainian S-300 air defence missile.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that some countries had made “baseless statements” about the incident, but that Washington had been comparatively restrained.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia had nothing to do with the incident.

Zainab Sa’id