The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, said on Wednesday, November 16, there are no indications that the missile strike which claimed the lives of two Polish residents was an "intentional attack," and that it was most likely just a tragic accident. While acknowledging that the missile that landed in Poland was most likely fired by Ukraine, Duda also asserted that Russia, which assaulted Ukraine with a volley of missiles on Tuesday (November 15), has the ultimate blame.
Earlier on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden and other Western supporters of Ukraine backed an investigation into the circumstances surrounding how the missile, which Poland says was made by Russia, ended up in a farmland and killed two people. At the same time, Russia was raining down missiles and drones on Ukrainian power grids.
The rocket landed on Tuesday not far from Poland's Ukrainian border. According to three American sources, early analyses indicate it was shot towards an approaching Russian force by Ukrainian soldiers. Due to their lack of authorisation to speak publicly about the situation, the officials talked on the condition of anonymity.
That conclusion and Biden's remarks at the G-20 conference in Indonesia ran counter to information provided to The Associated Press earlier on Tuesday by a senior US intelligence official, who said that Russian missiles had penetrated into Poland.
Russia compliments US
In a rare compliment to the US president, the Kremlin decried Poland's and other nations' "hysterical" response to the missile incident on Wednesday and praised the US for its "restrained and much more professional" reaction.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, "We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied, Russophobic reaction that was not based on any real data." He continued, referring to a “restrained, much more professional reaction" of the US and its president, Joe Biden, and said, "immediately, all experts realised that it could not have been a missile linked to the Russian armed forces."
Russia denied any involvement. However, on the same day, Russia carpet-bombed the entire country with missiles and drones, obscuring the details and motivations behind what actually occurred in Poland.
NATO countries Germany and the UK were among those who emphasised the importance of a thorough probe in Europe. Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, cautioned against making snap judgments "on such a serious matter." Scholz and others nevertheless ascribed general responsibility to Russian President Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine.
"This wouldn’t have happened without the Russian war against Ukraine, without the missiles that are now being fired at Ukrainian infrastructure intensively and on a large scale," Scholz said.
The Polish government declared that it was looking into the matter and stepping up its level of military readiness. "Full U.S. support for and assistance with Poland's investigation," Biden promised on Twitter.
We also reaffirmed our continued readiness to hold Russia accountable for its brazen attacks on Ukraine, even as the G20 meets to deal with the wider impacts of the war.And we all express our condolences to the families of the victims in Poland and Ukraine.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 16, 2022
