Missile strike in Poland raises fear of conflict
Russia denies firing weapon
London/Melbourne – A missile blast in Nato-member Poland that Ukraine blamed on Russia raised fears of a deeper confrontation between the US-led military alliance and Russia amid the deadliest war in Europe since World War 2.
American president Joe Biden said the missile, which killed two people, was probably not fired from Russia and Moscow said it had not targeted the area. Many Nato allies called for thorough investigations and the alliance convened an emergency meeting.
First news of the incident was reported by Polish Radio ZET which said on Tuesday that two stray missiles hit Przewodow, a village in eastern Poland about 6km from the border with Ukraine.
According to the Polish foreign ministry, a Russian-made missile fell on the village at 3.40pm after a massive day of Russian shelling of Ukraine.
A resident who declined to be identified, said the two men who were killed were near a grain facility.
Polish president Andrzej Duda said later that “it was most likely a Russian-made missile,” but that the incident was still under investigation.
Duda said “what happened in Przewodów was a once-off event” and “there is no indication that any more will take place.”
Duda said he had informed Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg and Biden that it is “highly probable” that the Polish ambassador to Nato “will request to invoke Article 4, that is consultations among the allies”.
He also said Poland has no conclusive evidence showing who fired the missile.
Russia said it wasn’t their missile.
“Statements by Polish media and officials about ‘Russian’ missiles allegedly falling in the area of the settlement of Przewodow are a deliberate provocation aimed at escalating the situation,” the defence ministry said.
“No strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border were made by Russian means of destruction.
“The wreckage published by Polish media in hot pursuit from the scene in the settlement of Przewodow has nothing to do with Russian weapons.”
It was unclear if Russia had used a Cold War hotline – installed after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis – to speak to Washington to calm the situation. President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment on the incident.
Biden said he did not believe the missiles were fired by Putin’s man.
“There is preliminary information that contests that,” he told reporters.
“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.”
Associated Press first reported that a senior US intelligence official said Russian missiles crossed into Poland, killing two people.
But later, AP published a different story saying that initial findings suggested that the missile that hit Poland was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.
Meanwhile, the villagers of Przewodow struggled yesterday to adjust to the reality of a new and terrifying threat.
Many locals kept their children indoors while others assessed damage caused to local buildings by the explosion.
“I’m terrified, people whom we knew very well have died,” Joanna Magus, a teacher of Polish at the local primary school, which lies just 100m from the site of the explosion, told reporters.
“It’s a very small community, one of the men who died is my colleague.”
After a sleepless night, principal Ewa Byra decided to keep the school, situated some 300m from the blast site, open.
“I told the parents I see no grounds to close the school but kids haven’t shown up. It seems parents have kept them at home amid the heavy police presence,” she said.
She was at a different school in a different community when the blast happened but an employee that lives some 15km from the school told her the explosion had shaken windows there.
One of the victims was a father of an ex-pupil and the other the husband of a cleaner at the school, Byra said.
She said she was worried about the psychological impact of the blast on her pupils.
“Since the start of the war we keep analysing the danger, it has quieted down recently, but here we are today,” she said.
“It’s terrifying. ”