Fears that the incident with a stray missile that exploded on Polish territory on Tuesday, killing two people, would take the war in Ukraine to a new dimension faded yesterday as the first official information about its nature emerged. The risk of an escalation that drags NATO into the conflict is receding.
"Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was probably caused by Ukrainian air defense missiles fired to defend Ukrainian territory from Russian cruise missile attacks," announced Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, at the end of the meeting. meeting of ambassadors held yesterday in Brussels, in which the Polish diplomatic representative conveyed to the allies the first conclusions of his investigation into what happened in Przewodów, the small town located a few kilometers from the border with Ukraine where on Tuesday afternoon the a projectile.
The fact that the missile was probably fired by the Ukrainian army does not mean that Kyiv is responsible for what happened, Stoltenberg stressed, making it clear that Kyiv cannot be held responsible for what happened. "Let's be clear: this is not Ukraine's fault, Russia is ultimately responsible for going ahead with this illegal war." During the day on Tuesday, the Russian forces fired a hundred kamikaze missiles and drones on civilian targets and critical Ukrainian infrastructures, recalls the Alliance.
From Warsaw, the Polish authorities sent the same message after reporting that everything indicates that the incident was "an unfortunate event" caused by a Ukrainian S-300 type anti-aircraft missile and was not an intentional attack by Moscow. On Tuesday "we witnessed a massive attack by Russia against Ukraine, its entire territory was bombed, especially the areas close to the borders," President Andrzej Duda said yesterday morning after the meeting of the Polish national security council. "Ukraine it was defending itself against the attack, so the blame for the whole incident lies with Russia," he added.
Based on these conclusions, the Polish government finally decided not to invoke article 4 of the NATO treaty, which provides for consultations between allies if a country feels that its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. The last time it was activated was at the request of seven allies on February 24, when Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine.
Stoltenberg welcomed the "prudent" reaction of NATO and allies to the worrying news from Poland on Tuesday afternoon. The potential consequences of a deliberate attack or even an accident are so serious that both Warsaw and Washington, the big European capitals, the Alliance itself or the European Union avoided taking anything for granted and advocated the utmost caution until the facts were clarified. . Only the Baltic countries immediately claimed the collective defense obligation that unites the allied countries.
Although it is important to react quickly, you also have to "remain calm and avoid escalation," Stoltenberg told reporters. “The coordination that has taken place between the allies, the measured responses and the message that was given that you have to clarify the facts before drawing conclusions show that NATO reacted prudently and responsibly,” he said.
The Government of Ukraine, which at first branded the hypothesis that a Ukrainian missile was responsible for the explosion as a "conspiracy theory", yesterday demanded "immediate access" from Warsaw to the place where the incident occurred. "We are prepared to present evidence of the Russian trail that we have," insisted yesterday the secretary of the Ukrainian national security and defense council, Oleksii Danilov. President Volodimir Zelenskiy insisted on this theory yesterday and complained about not having received evidence of the alleged Ukrainian authorship, but both NATO and Poland, a country with a very close relationship with Kyiv, have avoided polemicizing.
Unless the investigation yields bigger surprises, the Atlantic Alliance and Moscow will thus have managed to avoid a crisis that theoretically could have changed the nature of the conflict. Although in the view of the Kremlin, given the magnitude of the military aid provided by the United States and Europe, NATO cannot say that it is not participating in the war in Ukraine, the Western military organization has not sent troops on the ground under the flag nor has it agreed to some of Kyiv's requests, such as the declaration of a no-fly zone, a decision that would inevitably drag it into the conflict.
