Rocket hit in Poland: Biden calls launch from Russia “unlikely”

According to the United States, the rocket that hit a village in south-eastern Poland was probably not fired from Russia. Poland had previously confirmed the explosion of a Russian-made rocket.

US President Joe Biden has described it as “unlikely” that the missile that hit Poland was fired from Russia. However, he promised to support the Polish investigation into the case.

“There is preliminary information that speaks against it,” he said when asked by journalists whether the missile had been fired from Russia. He referred to the flight path of the projectile. “But we’ll see,” he said, referring to the ongoing investigations.

Emergency meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit

Two people were killed in the impact in Poland near the Ukrainian border in the east of the country on Tuesday. Biden then called an emergency meeting of G7 and NATO leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Biden said he updated allies on his talks with Polish President Andrzej Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the wake of the missile strike. There was “complete agreement” at the table to support the Polish investigation into the attack. “I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened,” Biden said. “Then we will consider our next step.”

The meeting, held in a ballroom in Biden’s hotel, was attended by the leaders of the G7 countries, which, in addition to the USA, include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Great Britain, and at whose meetings the European Union is always represented. Also present were EU Council President Charles Michel and the Prime Ministers of the NATO countries Spain and the Netherlands.

Poland confirms rocket hit

The Polish Foreign Ministry had previously confirmed the impact of a Russian-made missile. Both Ukraine and Russia use Soviet-designed missiles. Polish President Andrzej Duda said there was still no certainty as to who was responsible for the missile impact. “We don’t have any clear evidence at the moment as to who fired the rocket,” Duda told journalists. The investigations into this were still ongoing.

It would be the first strike by Russian weapons in a NATO member country since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine began.

NATO emergency meeting on Wednesday

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors for Wednesday. A spokeswoman said the meeting would be about the “tragic incident” in Poland.

According to President Duda, Poland’s ambassador to NATO is likely to apply to initiate Article 4 procedures of the NATO treaty. Article 4 provides for consultations between NATO countries if one of them sees a threat to the integrity of its territory, political independence or its own security.

Poland is stepping up surveillance of its airspace

According to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the evening, Poland is increasing surveillance of its airspace. Warsaw also announced that Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau had summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded “immediate, comprehensive explanations”.

At the same time, Morawiecki called on his compatriots to calm down. “I call on all Poles to remain calm in the face of this tragedy,” Morawiecki said early in the morning after a crisis meeting of his cabinet in Warsaw. “We must exercise restraint and prudence.”

Poland’s armed forces in increased readiness

A spokesman for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that on Tuesday there was a massive shelling of the entire Ukrainian territory and its critical infrastructure by the Russian army. The village of Przevodow is about 60 kilometers as the crow flies from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, which was also the target of Russian attacks.

After the incident, Poland put part of its armed forces on increased readiness. This also applies to other uniformed services, said a government spokesman in Warsaw in the evening. It is about specific military combat units and the combat readiness of units of the uniformed services, he said, without giving any further details.

Moscow speaks of “provocation”

Russia had previously responded to reports of explosions. The Ministry of Defense in Moscow described the Polish media’s statements about rocket hits as deliberate provocations. The reports are aimed at escalating the situation, the Interfax news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

No targets in the Ukrainian-Polish border area were fired upon. The photos of alleged pieces of debris circulated in the Polish media also had nothing to do with Russian weapon systems, it said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba denied that the rocket was fired by Ukraine. “Russia is now spreading a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile from the Ukrainian air defense system that fell on Poland,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter in the evening. “That is not true.”

Ukraine calls for no-fly zone

Meanwhile, Ukraine is pushing the West to set up a no-fly zone. “We ask for the sky to be closed because the sky has no borders,” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on Twitter. This is necessary to shoot down uncontrolled missiles and also to protect the EU and NATO countries.

However, the German government rejects decisions that could lead to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. A no-fly zone would have to be enforced with fighter jets. That would mean NATO entering the war, Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned in the spring.