Poland: No evidence that missile strike ‘intentional’

POLAND has said there is “absolutely no indication” that a missile that came down on farmland near its border with Ukraine on Tuesday, killing two people, was an intentional attack, and added that Ukraine is likely to have launched the projectile.

Kyiv’s forces were fending off a huge Russian air assault that savaged its power grid on Tuesday when the incident happened.

“Ukraine’s defence was launching their missiles in various directions and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” said Poland’s President Andrzej Duda.

“There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland,” he added.

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the military alliance in Brussels, Belgium, agreed with the assessment, saying: “An investigation into this incident is ongoing and we need to await its outcome, but we have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack.”

“This is likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile,” Mr Stoltenberg said, adding that the alliance has “no indication that Russia is preparing action” against any of its 30 member countries.

The preliminary findings came after United States President Joe Biden and other Western backers of Ukraine had thrown their weight behind the investigation, amid repeated assertions from Russia that it did not fire the missile.

Mr Biden said it was “unlikely” that Russia fired the missile, but added: “I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened.”

Three US officials said preliminary assessments suggested it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.

Ukrainian air defences worked furiously against Tuesday’s Russian assault on power generation and transmission facilities, including in Ukraine’s western region that borders Poland. Ukraine’s military said 77 of the more than 90 Russian missiles fired were brought down, along with 11 drones.

The Kremlin denounced Poland’s and other countries’ initial reaction to the missile incident and, in rare praise for a US leader, hailed the response of Mr Biden.

“We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied, Russophobic reaction that was not based on any real data,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, as he pointed to a “restrained, much more professional reaction” from the US.

In Europe, Nato members Germany and the UK were among those stressing the need for a full investigation into the incident.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said he would not speculate on the origin of the missile which hit Poland. He told reporters during a visit to Appledore, Devon: “We’re all trying to establish the facts.

“The international community is working together, and I think the Polish prime minister has been pretty clear that we will progress once we know exactly what’s happened.”

Mr Wallace added: “The obvious point is that missiles were flying around yesterday because Russia was firing over 80 missiles into Ukraine, hitting civilian locations, inevitably killing innocent civilians.”