Global tension rises as missile lands in Poland
WASHINGTON: Poland has said that a missile strike that killed two people in its territory close to the border with Ukraine was “not an intentional attack”, and was likely to have come from Ukrainian air defence systems, narrowly averting a geopolitical crisis that could have led to a direct conflict between the West and Russia.
On Tuesday afternoon, a missile strike in Przewodow village, four miles west of Ukraine, killed two people, throwing global geopolitics in turmoil, for a Russian attack on a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member would have marked an unprecedented escalation in the nine-month old war in the European theatre.
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, said, “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 defense.” He added that Ukraine’s defence was launching its missiles in various directions and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”
While the Kremlin denied attacking Poland, there were fears on Tuesday about how, if the attack was attributed to Russia, it would trigger NATO’s Article 5 provision — where an attack on one country is seen as an attack on the entire bloc and triggers collective secure response mechanisms. The US has supported Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, with military and economic assistance but not deployed troops. But President Biden has consistently warned Russia that the American commitment to its NATO allies is “iron-clad” and any attack would invite a response.
While Russia launched among its most fierce missile strikes across Ukrainian territory and civilian infrastructure on Tuesday, the Kremlin denied it was responsible for the strikes in Poland.