Escalating fears eased after NATO and Warsaw say missile that hit Poland was Ukrainian missile

(1st UPDATE) News that officials conclude the missile is Ukrainian brings some relief to residents of the Polish village where the missile hit, who say they feared being drawn into the war

A missile that hit Poland was likely a stray missile fired by Ukrainian air defenses and not a Russian strike, Poland and NATO said on Wednesday (November 16th), allaying global concerns that war in Ukraine could end. spread across the border.

Nonetheless, the NATO chief said Moscow, not Kyiv, was ultimately to blame for starting the war in the first place and launching the attack that tripped Ukraine’s defences.

β€œIt’s not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears the ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

NATO ambassadors were holding emergency talks to respond to Tuesday’s explosion that killed two people at a grain facility in Poland near the Ukrainian border, the war’s first deadly spillover into NATO territory. Western military alliance.

“According to the information we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side “said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “It is most likely that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence.”

Stoltenberg also said it was likely a Ukrainian air defense missile. Earlier, US President Joe Biden said the trajectories suggested the missile was unlikely to have been fired from Russia.

The incident came as Russia fired dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine, in what Ukraine says is the largest volley of such strikes in the nine-month war.

Kyiv says it shot down most incoming Russian missiles with its own air defense missiles. Ukraine’s Volyn region, located just across the border from Poland, was one of many Ukrainian regions that Ukraine says were targeted by Russian attacks across the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry said none of its missiles struck within 35 km (20 miles) of the Polish border and that photos of the wreckage in Poland showed parts of a Ukrainian missile from S-300 air defense.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that some countries had made “baseless claims” about the incident, but that Washington had been relatively muted. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia had nothing to do with the incident.

Hours after the incident, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blamed it on “Russian missile terror”, and Kyiv on Wednesday appeared unwilling to admit its own missile was involved. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Kyiv wanted access to the site and still saw a Russian “trace” behind the attack.

However, news that authorities had concluded the missile was Ukrainian brought relief to residents of the Polish village where the missile hit, who said they feared being drawn into the war.

“Everyone has in mind that we are right next to the border and an armed conflict with Russia would directly expose us,” Grzegorz Drewnik, the mayor of Dolhobyczow, the municipality to which Przewodow belongs, told Reuters.

“If it’s a mistake of the Ukrainians, there shouldn’t be major consequences, but I’m not an expert here.”

Some Western leaders at a G20 major economies summit in Indonesia hinted that whoever fired the missile, Russia and President Vladimir Putin would ultimately be blamed for an incident resulting from its invasion.

“They have stressed that whatever the outcome of this investigation, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine bears full responsibility for the ongoing violence,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said after a meeting between Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the summit.

Leaders at the summit issued a statement saying “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine”, while acknowledging that “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”. .

Russia is a member of the G20 and Ukraine is not, but Zelenskiy addressed the summit via video link, while Putin stayed at home.

Moscow launched Tuesday’s wave of missile attacks just days after abandoning the southern city of Kherson, the only regional capital it had captured since the invasion.

In Kherson, residents of the central square barely noticed on Wednesday that explosions could be heard from Russian artillery firing into the city. – Rappler.com

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