Russian missiles kill 2 in Poland
Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities Tuesday with its biggest barrage of missiles yet, striking targets across the country and causing widespread blackouts. A senior U.S. intelligence official said missiles crossed into NATO member Poland and killed two people.
A second person told The Associated Press that apparent Russian missiles struck a site in Poland about 15 miles from the Ukrainian border.
If confirmed, the strike would mark the first time in the war that Russian weapons have come down on a NATO country.
The Russian Defense Ministry denied being behind “any strikes on targets near the UkrainianPolish border” and said in a statement that photos of purported damage “have nothing to do” with Russian weapons.
A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alliance was looking into reports of a strike in Poland. The U.S. National Security Council said it was also checking into the reports.
Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller confirmed that an explosion had killed two people and said some military units were put on alert while officials investigated.
Polish media reported that the strike took place in an area where grain was drying in Przewodów, a village near the border with Ukraine.
The barrage also affected neighboring Moldova. It reported massive power outages after the strikes knocked out a key power line that supplies the small nation, an official said.
The missile strikes plunged much of Ukraine into darkness and drew defiance from President Volodymr Zelenskyy, who shook his fist and declared: “We will survive everything.”
In his nightly address, the Ukrainian leader characterized the reported strikes in Poland as “a very significant escalation” that offered proof that “terror is not limited by our state borders.”
“We need to put the terrorist in its place. The longer Russia feels impunity, the more threats there will be for everyone within the reach of Russian missiles,” Zelenskyy said.
Russia fired at least 85 missiles, most of them aimed at the country’s power facilities, and blacked out many cities, he said.
The Ukrainian energy minister said the attack was “the most massive” bombardment of power facilities in the nearly 9-monthold Russian invasion, striking both power generation and transmission systems.
The minister, Herman Haluschenko, described the missile strikes as “another attempt at terrorist revenge” after military and diplomatic setbacks for the Kremlin. He accused Russia of “trying to cause maximum damage to our energy system on the eve of winter.”
The aerial assault, which resulted in at least one death in a residential building in the capital, Kyiv, followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes — the retaking last week of the southern city of
Kherson.
The power grid was already battered by previous attacks that destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy said the number of Ukrainians without power had fallen from 10 million to 2 million by Tuesday evening.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the retreat from
Kherson since his troops pulled out in the face of a Ukrainian offensive. But the stunning scale of Tuesday’s strikes spoke volumes and hinted at anger in the Kremlin.