Russian stray missiles hit village in Poland

Two stray Russian missiles reportedly landed in the Polish town of Przewodów on the border with Ukraine on Tuesday, killing two people. A senior US intelligence official confirmed the incident to the AP news agency. Russian missiles flew across the border to NATO member Poland, two people were killed, it said.

+++ All developments on the war against Ukraine in the live blog +++

Poland transferred in the evening part of its armed forces on increased readiness. This also applies to other uniformed services, said a government spokesman in Warsaw. He also said that Poland has decided to examine whether there are grounds to initiate the Article 4 procedures of the North Atlantic Treaty. Article 4 provides for consultations between the NATO states if one of them sees the integrity of its territory, political independence or its own security threatened. The government in Warsaw had previously convened a meeting of the National Security Council and later also a cabinet meeting.

Moscow calls reports of rocket hits in Poland ‘provocation’

In the evening, Poland’s head of state Andrzej Duda spoke with US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj. Zelenskyi clearly attributed the incident to Moscow. “This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a very significant escalation,” he said. “We have to take action.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also spoke to Duda in the evening. NATO is monitoring the situation, the allies are consulting closely, he said after the exchange on Twitter. It is important that facts are secured, said the Norwegian.

The White House says it works with the Polish governmentto get more information about the events on the border with Ukraine. The US National Security Council said it was unable to confirm any reports or details at this time.

The Ministry of Defense in Moscow, on the other hand, dismissed the reports about the alleged impact in Poland as a “targeted provocation”. The ministry said that no targets in the Ukrainian-Polish border area were fired at. The photos of alleged debris disseminated in the Polish media also had nothing to do with Russian weapon systems, it said.

Photos should show the impact site

had in the early evening the Polish broadcaster Radio ZET citing unofficial sources, the two rockets hit a grain drying plant, killing two people. The police, prosecutors and army are on site. The fire brigade confirmed that an explosion at a farm in Przewodow killed two people. The cause of the explosion is still unclear, said a spokesman for the fire brigade in Hrubieszow.

Photos published on social media are said to show the impact site. It shows a large crater and a tractor trailer that has overturned.

It would be the first such incident in Russia’s nearly nine-month war of aggression against Ukraine. Poland is a member of the EU and the western defense alliance NATO.

However, the Polish government spokesman Müller warned against spreading unverified information. All information from the Polish government’s Committee on Security and Defense should later be made available to the public, he announced, according to the PAP news agency.

Baerbock: “We are monitoring the situation closely”

US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said they had seen the reports from Poland and are working with the Polish government to gather more information. “We cannot confirm the reports or details at this time. We will determine what happened and what the appropriate next steps would be,” she wrote on Twitter.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on Twitter that her thoughts are with Germany’s neighbor and ally Poland: “We are monitoring the situation closely and are in contact with our Polish friends and NATO allies.”

Russia had on Tuesday attacked Ukraine’s energy system with over 90 rockets and cruise missiles and caused serious damage. According to Ukrainian military information, it was the most massive attack on infrastructure since the war began a good eight months ago.

Among other things, Lviv was hit in the west of the country, which is around 50 kilometers from the Polish border.

RND/seb/AP/dpa