The Polish President is likely to be the source of the missile on Poland Ukrainian defenses

Western leaders on Wednesday played down fears that a deadly missile explosion in eastern Poland could lead to a dangerous escalation in Russia's war on Ukraine, saying it was a stray anti-aircraft missile.

On Wednesday, the United States supported Warsaw's hypothesis that the missile that fell inside Poland was fired by Ukrainian forces, but Washington blamed Moscow for the accident.

"We have seen nothing that contradicts President (Andrzej) Duda's hypothesis that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile," the White House said in a statement.

"It is clear that the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia, which launched a barrage of missiles into Ukraine," he added.

And Polish President Andrzej Duda announced on Wednesday that it was "very likely" that the Ukrainian defenses were the source of the missile, which fell in a Polish town on the border with Ukraine, killing two people.

Washington supported this hypothesis

In Brussels, the ambassadors of NATO countries held an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning about the fall of the missile, while the Kremlin declared that it had "nothing to do" with the matter.

Duda told reporters that "nothing indicates that it was a deliberate attack on Poland."

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a different opinion, and said on Wednesday that the missile that hit Poland was Russian.

"I have no doubts that it was not our missile. I think it was a Russian missile, based on our military reports," Zelensky said in televised remarks.

He added that Kyiv had not seen evidence that the missile was Ukrainian, pointing out the need for Ukraine to be part of the investigation.

In turn, the Hungarian government said on Wednesday that Volodymyr Zelensky had set a "bad example" by saying that the missile that killed two people in a Polish village near the border with Ukraine was Russian.

"In such a situation, world leaders speak with responsibility," Gergely Gulias, chief of office to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, told reporters. But "the Ukrainian president, in immediately accusing the Russians, was wrong. It's a bad example." He welcomed the cautious stance of Poland and the United States.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that "there is no indication" that the explosion that killed two people in Poland resulted from a "deliberate attack".

An explosion occurred in the village of Bjivodov in eastern Poland at 14:40 GMT on Tuesday, killing two people.

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