Poland’s president and NATO say Ukrainian defense against a Russian barrage likely caused the deadly blast.
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Poland’s president and the secretary general of NATO said on Wednesday that a Ukrainian air defense missile had most likely caused a deadly explosion on Polish territory a day earlier, but emphasized that Kyiv was not to blame for trying to defend itself.
President Andrzej Duda noted that Russian forces had launched a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine and its civilian infrastructure on Tuesday. He said early indications suggested that Ukrainian efforts to counter the hail of about 100 missiles had caused an “unfortunate accident” in Poland — not a direct attack on his country.
“We have no evidence at the moment that it was a rocket launched by Russian forces,” Mr. Duda told reporters. “However, there are many indications that it was a missile that was used by Ukraine’s antimissile defense.”
Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, said after meeting with the alliance’s envoys that a preliminary analysis suggested that the incident “was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks.”
A fuller investigation is ongoing, he said, stressing that there was no indication of a deliberate attack by Russia or of any Russian plans to attack a NATO ally — meaning that NATO’s commitment to collective defense was not at issue.
After a night of intense discussion and even panic about whether Russia had somehow attacked a NATO ally, the results of the investigation so far seemed to lower the temperature.
Neither Russia nor NATO wants to go to war with the other. Both sides have shown considerable restraint in trying to avoid direct confrontation and keep the war from spilling over outside Ukraine.
Western officials have blamed Russia for its brutal war of aggression and suggested that its attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure constitute war crimes.
“Let me be clear: This is not Ukraine’s fault,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister had denied that one of its missiles was involved in the explosion, which President Volodymyr Zelensky had called an “escalation” by Russia. On Wednesday, Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Kyiv was “expecting information” from its “partners” on the preliminary findings and requesting access to the site.
Russia had denied responsibility and said that it did not aim any missiles near the border with Poland on Tuesday.
Key details on what transpired have yet to be clarified. There are questions about the trajectory of the missile in question and whether it might have been aiming at or had hit a Russian missile. Investigators will also focus on what the debris from Poland shows.
Belgium’s defense minister, Ludivine Dedonder, said in a Twitter message that “pieces of Russian missiles and a Ukrainian interception missile are said to have landed in Poland.” She said this was “to be confirmed by ongoing investigations.”
Mr. Duda also emphasized that the events in Poland had come amid a “massive, unprecedented” Russian attack on Ukraine.
“Ukraine defended itself — which is obvious and understandable — also by firing missiles whose task was to knock down Russian missiles,” he said. “Therefore we were dealing with a very serious clash caused by the Russian side, as well as the entire conflict. Yesterday’s clash is certainly borne by the Russian side,” Mr. Duda said.
He also said that “preliminary examination of the scene indicates that there was no classic rocket explosion there, but that it was the result of the rocket’s fall, perhaps in conjunction with the explosion of the fuel that remained.”
In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, some immediately blamed Russia and questioned whether Poland might invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, which commits its members to mutual defense, stating that an attack on one is an attack on all.
In the end, given the likelihood that the missile was Ukrainian, Poland refrained as well from invoking Article 4 of the charter, which states that any NATO member country can request a formal consultation among all members if, “in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security” of another member is threatened. Poland reserved the right to invoke Article 4 later.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
— Steven Erlanger and Marc Santora
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