The Wall Street Journal: Russia's mistake threatens direct confrontation with NATO in Poland

The American Wall Street Journal reported that despite statements issued by the United States and NATO questioning Moscow's responsibility for the fall of a missile in Poland the day before yesterday, Tuesday, the incident is worrisome because it is in Ultimately a Russian mistake.

The newspaper said - in its editorial - that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said - yesterday, Wednesday - that there is no evidence that the missile incident "was a deliberate attack."

Stoltenberg said that the preliminary analysis reached by NATO indicates "the possibility that the accident was caused by the launch of a Ukrainian air defense missile, to defend Ukrainian territory in the face of Russian cruise missile attacks," which it was subjected to last Tuesday.

The newspaper considered that the efforts of America and the Secretary-General of NATO to ease concern about the incident are understandable, as none of the parties wants to escalate the war in Ukraine into a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, but the incident does not give reassurance, because what happened remains Russia's fault, according to the newspaper.

She pointed out that the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which closely tracks the course of the conflict in Ukraine, said that Russia bombed Ukraine with about 100 missiles last Tuesday, many of which targeted the city of Lviv, which is only 40 miles from Poland.

And Polish President Andrzej Duda said - yesterday, Wednesday - that his country is likely to ask NATO to activate Article 4 of the Alliance Charter, against the background of a missile falling on a village in eastern Poland near the Ukrainian border.

Article IV allows any NATO member state to request consultations with allies if it feels its territorial integrity, political independence or security is under threat.

NATO members are committed to collective defense, which means that if the source of the missile is confirmed to be Russia, the risk of expanding the conflict will escalate, according to experts.

The Polish president said there was no clear evidence yet of who fired the missile, which hit a farm and killed two people in a village about 6 km from the border with Ukraine.

The Wall Street Journal noted in its editorial that Poland may be subject to Western diplomatic pressure to discourage it from doing so, as Western officials seek to avoid raising people's concerns about the expansion of the conflict.