Polish President Andrzej Duda said today, Wednesday, that the missile that occurred in his country on Tuesday was most likely unintentionally launched by Ukrainian air defenses, and NATO stated that the missile was launched by the Ukrainian air defense system to intercept Russian cruise missiles.

The Polish president stated that his country (a NATO member) does not see the need to activate Article 4 of the NATO Charter regarding the missile falling about 12 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, killing two people.

Article IV of the NATO Treaty provides that any NATO member state that feels threatened by another country or a terrorist organization has the right to submit a request to start formal consultations with member states to decide whether the threat exists, and to determine how to confront it, while reaching unanimous decisions.

The Polish President said that there were no indications that the missile that fell within the borders of his country was launched intentionally, describing the matter as an unfortunate accident, and Duda added that his country is conducting investigations in cooperation with NATO regarding the fall of the missile.

Not intentional

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said today, Wednesday - at a press conference in Brussels - that there is no indication that the explosion that killed two people in Poland resulted from a deliberate attack.

Stoltenberg added that NATO's preliminary analysis indicated that the accident was most likely caused by a missile fired by the Ukrainian air defense system to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missiles.

NATO Secretary General: There is no indication that the missile incident in Poland was a deliberate attack (Anatolia)

Reuters quoted a source in NATO as saying that US President Joe Biden told the partners in the Group of Seven and the alliance that the explosion in Poland was caused by a Ukrainian missile, and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that Washington will continue to work with its allies such as Poland and others to collect information about what happened yesterday, Tuesday, in Referring to the fall of a missile in Polish territory.

For its part, the French Press Agency quoted Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedondre as saying that the Ukrainian missile interception system was behind the fall of the missile in Poland, and the minister added in a statement, "Based on the available information, it appears that fragments of Russian missiles and Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles hit Polish territory."

Germany warns

For his part, German Chancellor Olaf Soltz warned against any "hasty conclusions before conducting a thorough investigation" about the fall of the missile in Poland, and the German chancellor added in a press conference at the G-20 summit held in Indonesia, "All this would not have happened without the Russian war on Ukraine, and without Missiles fired at Ukrainian infrastructure.

The German Ministry of Defense offered to support Poland with air patrols with the participation of German Eurofighter fighters, following the fall of the missile.

French President Emmanuel Macron also said that his country stresses the need to exercise utmost caution regarding the source of the missile that fell in Poland.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to accuse Russia of being behind the targeting of Polish lands, and pointed to the fall of Russian missiles earlier on Moldova, Ukraine's southwestern neighbor.

Where did the missile come from?

Will NATO intervene to defend Warsaw?


Alert and consultations within NATO after two people were killed by a missile in Poland.

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- AJ+ Arabic (@ajplusarabi) November 16, 2022

Following the issuance of statements from Poland, NATO and the United States regarding the source of the missile that fell in Poland, the head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, requested that his country be able to locate the location of the missile in eastern Ukraine, adding that Kyiv wants a joint research into Tuesday's accident with its partners.

Moscow statements

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said that Russian military experts confirmed that the photos of the wreckage found at the site of the missile fall in Poland belong to the S-300 systems of Ukraine.

Konashenkov considered the Ukrainian statements about the fall of Russian missiles in Poland a deliberate provocation, as he described it.

As for Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, he said that the response of a number of countries to the missile incident in Poland shows that there is no need to rush into statements that would escalate the situation.

Peskov added that he did not see any guilt for Russia in the missile incident, and said that it was possible for Poland to declare directly that the missile that fell on its territory had nothing to do with Russia, noting that Washington showed more professionalism than the Europeans regarding the incident.