Both Poland and NATO concluded that the missile that fell on Polish territory was most likely a stray missile fired by the Ukrainian air defense system and not a Russian strike, dispelling international fears that the war could spread beyond Ukraine.
However, the NATO chief said that Moscow, not Kyiv, was primarily responsible for starting the war, with its invasion of a neighboring country in February and the launch of dozens of missiles on Tuesday, triggering Ukrainian defenses. “This is not the fault of Ukraine. Russia bears the last responsibility because it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.
Allied ambassadors held emergency talks to respond to Tuesday’s explosion that killed two people at a grain plant in Poland near the border with Ukraine, the first war-related death in Western alliance territory. “According to the information we and our allies have, it was a Soviet-made S-300, it is an old missile, and there is no evidence that it was launched from the Russian side,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “It is very likely that the Ukrainian air defense system fired at him,” he added.
