Poland has reacted with shock but caution to a likely Russian rocket explosion that killed two people in the eastern border village of Przewodów on Tuesday evening. According to the local fire service, they were killed in an explosion, possibly caused by a deflected Russian projectile. Photos of debris and a blown-over vehicle were circulated on social media, but whether a Russian missile was the cause could not yet be confirmed. The Polish government was scheduled to meet in crisis consultations later in the evening and called for not to speculate on an attack or its consequences.
An attack on one NATO country counts as an attack on all, but an accidental missile landing in Poland is unlikely to be seen by allies as an attack and a reason to escalate militarily towards Russia. It is still uncertain at all whether the missile came from the Russians and whether it was aimed at Polish territory. Such a missile may have been deflected by Ukrainian air defenses.
The deadly explosion in Poland came on a day when Russia bombarded eight cities in Ukraine with missiles. It is unknown how many victims there were. In Kiev, several apartment complexes were damaged and energy facilities in Lviv and Kharkiv, among others, were hit. Ukraine announced that it managed to intercept 70 of the 100 missiles fired at the vital power infrastructure.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, eastern Poland has been considered vulnerable. The Ukrainian city of Lviv is a regular target of bombings and is only 70 kilometers from the Polish border. In addition, the lion’s share of Western aid, including arms deliveries, goes through the Polish airport in Rzeszów. However, the projectile landed in a small village much further north on Thursday and appears to have had no actual target in Poland.
The Baltic states, which fear attacks on their own territory, immediately reacted strongly to the explosion. “Estonia stands ready to defend every inch of NATO territory,” Estonia’s foreign ministry said in a statement. The Latvian foreign minister expressed his solidarity towards Poland on Twitter, calling it “a very serious escalation by the Kremlin” for which “Russia bears full responsibility for all the consequences”.
The American response was considerably more cautious. Pentagon spokesmen said Tuesday evening they were investigating the matter, but could not confirm whether a Russian missile had claimed fatalities on NATO territory. The US State Department immediately issued a statement that the reports from Poland are “incredibly worrying”, but added that the US is not looking for an escalation.
The Russian defense ministry denied that a Russian missile could have hit Polish territory, calling reports a “deliberate provocation intended to escalate the situation.”
“Terror is not limited to our borders,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message. “It is necessary to act.”