Cory Jennings-DuBois | News Editor
Tuesday, November 15th, Poland was hit with a defense missile, which resulted in many injuries and two casualties. The origin of said weapon is not yet known, but some rumors say that it was most likely a defense misled fired by Ukraine, which was experiencing the biggest wave of Russian airborne missile attacks since the beginning of the month.
The city of Przewodow, Poland is approximately four miles from its shared border with Ukraine. Polish President Andrzej Duda tweeted that, despite his innocent territory being caught in the Russia/Ukraine crossfire, “There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely, it was a Russian-made S-300 rocket”. There is minimal blame on Ukraine when it comes to the meaning of this missile, both from the fact that the origin of it is not yet known, and the fact that more countries than not have sympathized with Ukraine during this war.
An emergency meeting in Brussels was called on Wednesday, due to the fact that Poland is a NATO country. The US-led military alliance held this meeting, and discussed this topic to it’s length. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg agreed with President Duda, saying that there is no reasonable evidence that this was a planned attack, and that the Ukrainian military is not to be blamed, as they were making an attempt to defend their country from Russia’s massive attack.
Stoltenberg explained, “Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by the Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks. But let me be clear, this is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.”
President Joe Biden also got involved when news of this incident traveled overnight. He assembled an emergency meeting with some of the world leaders, where they discussed the topic at hand on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
The outcome of this meeting was relatively ambiguous, instead focusing on the large amount of strikes that Ukraine endured hours before Poland was hit.
Ukraine also spoke about this, telling the United States, along with its allies, that there was an attempt at intercepting a Russian missile close to the area and at a similar time when Poland was hit. Again, the origins of this missile are unknown, so no blame was placed on Ukraine. But this openness bodes well for the country, and aids military leaders in finding the purpose of this missile.
There is no end to the support Ukraine has, as the National Security Council said they have “full confidence” in Polands investigation, and that the outcome will result in them finding that the incident was caused by Russia and its illegal invasion.
This goes to show where most countries stand when it comes to this war. Many countries have been affected by Russia’s attempted invasion of Ukraine, Poland being the most recent example. A quote from Mykhailo Podolyak says “Russia has turned the eastern part of the European continent into an unpredictable battlefield. Intent, means of execution, risks, escalation- it is all coming from Russia alone.” NATO countries are not happy, as well as other political faces who have spoken out about this war, and they will continue to fight this want-to-be imperial country until there are no more casualties and conflicts.