“Ukraine’s defense was firing its missiles in different directions and it is very likely that one of those missiles unfortunately landed on Polish territory,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was a deliberate attack on Poland.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the 30-nation military alliance in Brussels, echoed the preliminary Polish findings. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, disputed them and called for further investigation. Assessments of Tuesday’s deadly missile landing appeared to indicate the possibility that the strike would trigger another major escalation in Russia’s nearly 9-month-old invasion of Ukraine. If Russia had targeted Poland, this could have risked dragging NATO into the conflict. However, Stoltenberg and others blamed the war generally, but not specifically, on Russian President Vladimir Putin. “This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears the ultimate responsibility,” Stoltenberg said. Zelensky told reporters he had “no doubt” about a report he received from his top commanders “that it was not our missile or our missile strike.” Ukrainian officials should have access to the site and participate in the investigation, he added. “Let’s say it openly, if, God forbid, some remnant (of Ukraine’s air defense) killed a person, these people, then we have to apologize,” he said. “But first there has to be research, access — we want to get the data you have.” On Tuesday, he called the strike “a very significant escalation.” Before the Polish and NATO assessments, US President Joe Biden had said it was “unlikely” that Russia had fired the missile, but added: “I will make sure we find out exactly what happened.” A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman in Moscow said no Russian strike on Tuesday was closer than 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Ukraine-Poland border. The Kremlin denounced the initial response by Poland and other countries and, in rare praise for a US leader, hailed Biden’s “restrained, much more professional response”. “We are witnessing another hysterical, frenzied, Russophobic reaction that was not based on any real evidence,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Later on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry summoned the Polish ambassador to Moscow. The conversation lasted about 20 minutes. The Polish president said the missile was likely a Russian-made S-300 dating back to the Soviet era. Ukraine, once part of the Soviet Union, has Soviet- and Russian-made weapons and has also seized many more Russian weapons while fighting back against the Kremlin’s invading forces. Russia’s attack on power generation and transmission facilities on Tuesday included Ukraine’s western region bordering Poland. Ukraine’s military said 77 of the more than 90 missiles fired were shot down by air defenses, along with 11 drones. Bombardment across the country by cruise missiles and explosive drones clouded the initial picture of what happened in Poland. “It was a huge explosion, the sound was terrifying.” said Ewa Byra, the principal of the primary school in the eastern village of Przewodow, where the rocket fell. He said he knew both men who were killed — one was the husband of a school employee and the other the father of a former student. Another resident, 24-year-old Kinga Kancir, said the men were working at a grain drying facility. “It’s very hard to accept,” he said. “Nothing was happening and, suddenly, there’s a global sensation.” In Europe, NATO members demanded a thorough investigation and criticized Moscow. “This would not have happened without Russia’s war against Ukraine, without the missiles that are now being fired at Ukrainian infrastructure intensively and on a large scale,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. Parts of Ukraine were left without power after the airstrike. Zelensky said about 10 million people lost power, but tweeted overnight that 8 million had since been reconnected. Previous strikes had already destroyed around 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine said the bombing was the biggest on its power grid so far. A Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said Ukraine’s downing of so many Russian missiles on Tuesday “illustrates the improvement of Ukrainian air defenses over the past month”, which are bolstered by systems provided by the West. Sweden announced on Wednesday that an air defense system with munitions will be part of its latest and largest package of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, worth $360 million. The US has been Ukraine’s biggest backer, providing $18.6 billion in weapons and equipment. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the flow of arms and aid would continue “throughout the winter so Ukraine can continue to consolidate gains and take the initiative on the battlefield.” General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he tried to speak with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday, but those efforts were unsuccessful. Milley did not elaborate on the efforts, but the lack of conversation, at a time when there were questions about whether Russia had struck a NATO ally, raises concerns about high-level U.S.-Russia communications in a crisis. At the United Nations, the organization’s political chief said the missile attack on Poland was “a terrifying reminder” of the need to prevent any further escalation of the war. As the fighting continues, Rosemary DiCarlo warned the United Nations Security Council, “the risks of potentially catastrophic spillover remain all too real.” The Russian attacks followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes – last week’s recapture of the southern city of Kherson. With battlefield casualties mounting, Russia is increasingly resorting to targeting Ukraine’s power grid as winter approaches. Russian attacks in the past 24 hours have killed at least six civilians and wounded 17 others, the senior official, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Wednesday. Lviv Governor Maxim Kozytsky said two of the three Russian missiles hit critical energy infrastructure in the western province. Power has been restored to about 95 percent of the province, he said, but only 30 percent of consumers can use electricity at the same time. Power shortages caused widespread train delays extending into Wednesday, but there were no cancellations as diesel locomotives were brought back into service, railway officials said. Kyiv resident Margina Daria said Tuesday’s strikes knocked out cellphone service in her area. “We’ve already adapted to life without light, because we have planned holidays every day, but without communication it was quite worrying,” he said. “There was no way to tell our families that we were okay.”
AP reporters Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw. Lorne Cook in Brussels. John Leicester in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia. Zeke Miller in Nusa Dua, Indonesia. Michael Balsamo and Lolita Baldor in Washington. Elise Morton in London; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations. and James LaPorta in Wilmington, North Carolina contributed.
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