US probes report of missiles hitting Poland
Would be 1st time war crosses to NATO country
The U.S. government was investigating reports that Russian missiles crossed into Poland and struck a grain facility near the border of Ukraine on Tuesday, killing two people.
The Associated Press reported the strikes, citing a senior U.S. intelligence official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation, AP said.
A second person confirmed to the AP that apparent Russian missiles struck a site in Poland, a NATO member, about 15 miles from the Ukrainian border.
It was not immediately clear whether the missiles accidentally strayed into Poland or whether Poland was deliberated targeted. The missiles reportedly entered Poland as Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities with its biggest barrage of missiles yet, striking targets across the country and causing widespread blackouts.
If confirmed, the strikes in Poland would mark the first time that missiles have crossed in a NATO country during Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The White House said late Tuesday that President Joe Biden has been briefed and spoke by phone with Polish President Andrzej Duda. No other details about the call were provided.
Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force
Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder declined to comment in detail about the reports. Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the Biden administration is working with the Polish government.
“We cannot confirm the reports or any of the details at this time,” Watson wrote on Twitter. “We will determine what happened and what the appropriate next steps would be.”
Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller did not immediately confirm the information but said top leaders were holding an emergency meeting because of a “crisis situation.”
The Russian Defense Ministry denied being behind “any strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border” and said in a statement that photos of purported damage “have nothing to do” with Russian weapons.
The missile strikes came as Biden and leaders of the world’s largest economies gathered in Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of 20, or G-20, summit. Biden has been pushing leaders to take a harder line against Russia, including enforcing a price cap on Russian oil and gas.
On Tuesday, Russia struck Ukraine’s energy targets from east to west, causing widespread blackouts. A defiant President Volodymr Zelenskyy shook his fist and declared: “We will survive everything.”
Zelenskyy said Russia fired at least 85 missiles, “most of them at our energy infrastructure,” and shut down power in many cities.
“We’re working, will restore everything. We will survive everything,” the president vowed.
His energy minister said the attack was “the most massive” bombardment of power facilities in the nearly 9month-old Russian invasion, striking both power generation and transmission systems.
If the reports that missiles entered Poland are confirmed, it could trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which calls for the collective defense that NATO members pledge to provide for one another.
Already, the United States and NATO member countries have taken steps to beat back Russia’s aggression against its weaker neighbor, which is not a member of NATO. That includes providing Ukraine with weapons, technology and humanitarian assistance and imposing sanctions on Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally.
But NATO has gone out of its way not to intervene militarily in Russia’s war in Ukraine, or to even risk such a direct confrontation.
The collective defense principle “is at the very heart” of NATO’s founding treaty, the alliance says on its website homepage. Collective defense means that an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies.
Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on NATO ambassadors in Brussels to immediately review the reports from Poland. He said the strikes might not have been intentional.
“As we wait for more information on the situation, I have to believe that any strike into Poland had to be a mistake by
Russia,” Menendez said in a statement. “If so, Putin should come out very quickly and say so. NATO Ambassadors in Brussels should meet immediately to examine the situation. Article 5 requires us to support our NATO allies.”
Experts said Tuesday that the missile reports did not come as a surprise.
“Given the ferocity with which Russia has been raining down missiles across Ukraine in recent weeks, this incident, while hardly inevitable, is scarcely surprising considering that Poland adjoins Ukraine,” said Rajan Menon, a specialist at Defense Priorities, a think tank that promotes restraint.
Menon, a researcher at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, noted that Lviv, in Ukraine, is about 40 miles from the Polish border. He said in a statement that the incident does not mean NATO’s Article 5 is automatically invoked. Rather, each member has leeway to “take such actions it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.”
“The Article does not put them on autopilot or rob them of agency,” Menon said. “This does not mean that the Russian missile strike in Poland isn’t a serious incident. It is and brings home in a visceral manner how a prolonged war in Ukraine could lead to an incident which, while it may have been unintended, could nevertheless set a conflict spiral in motion.”
He said the episode underscores why it’s important for the United States and Russia to keep in close contact, no matter how frayed the relationship.