Biden believes Ukrainian missile landed in Poland – Reuters
US President Joe Biden has said Tuesday’s blast on Polish territory, which killed two civilians, was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile, Reuters has reported.
The US leader shared the information with his G7 and NATO partners, the news agency wrote on Wednesday, citing an anonymous NATO source.
The incident in the village of Przewodow near the border with Ukraine sparked fears that the Ukraine-Russia conflict could spill over into other nations, as Poland is a NATO member state.
Earlier on Wednesday, Biden said it was “unlikely” that the missile was fired by Russian forces.
“I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate, but it is unlikely, in the minds of the trajectory, that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see,” he told reporters at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia on Wednesday morning, following early consultations with NATO members.
Moscow has denied any involvement in the incident, describing the allegations as “a deliberate provocation” aimed at further escalating the situation. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the country’s military experts analyzed photos of the projectile’s parts published by the media and “identified them as elements of a missile from the S-300 air defense system used by the Air Force of Ukraine.”
The incident occurred during large-scale Russian shelling of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was quick to accuse Moscow of striking a NATO member. Russia’s military insists the strikes were carried out only against targets in Ukraine and no closer than 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) from the border with Poland.
