Russian-made missiles kills two in Poland

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, two Polish citizens are killed by missile blast just 6km from the Ukrainian border.

Yesterday, Tuesday November 15th, two missiles hit a farm on Polish soil near the Ukrainian border. The New York Times reports that the blast resulted in the fatalities of two Polish citizens and that local media suggests the weapons were of Russian origin. This comes on the heels of the wide scale missile attack Russia launched on Ukraine yesterday, targeting Ukraine’s energy system and leaving about 10 million Ukrainian’s without electricity.

CNN reports that Poland, which is a NATO member, has held an emergency meeting and is working hard to determine the origin of the projectiles. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stresses that it is “important that all the facts are established” before taking any definitive action, whereas Ukrainian President Zelensky has condemned Russia saying that “This is a very significant escalation. We must act.” The EU have renewed their support of both Poland and the Ukraine and The Pentagon has stated that they are taking these allegations very seriously and that the US will “defend every inch of NATO territory.” 

Russia’s defence ministry alleges that the missile explosion “has nothing to do with Russian weapons” and that the reports are “a deliberate provocation aimed at escalating the situation”. While it remains to be corroborated the situation seems to be an isolated incident, and with both Ukraine and Russia using Russian-made weaponry throughout the conflict, the missile could well be a stray. President Biden of the US corroborates this stating “it’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia.” The Polish President Andrzej Duda has also issued a statement saying that the incident was probably “an unfortunate accident” and that the missiles were presumably deployed by Ukrainian air defence.