Russian-made missile killed two in Poland near Ukraine border, says Polish government

Nov 15, 2022

This is a breaking story and will be updated as further information becomes available. You can also follow our live tweet updates here.

Following an explosion in a Polish village near the border with Ukraine on Tuesday that killed two people, Poland’s foreign ministry has issued a statement declaring that the incident was caused by a “Russian-made missile”.

Poland, which is a member of NATO, has summoned the Russian ambassador so that he can provide a “detailed explanation” of what happened.

The ministry’s communique, issued around midnight at the end of Tuesday, came after hours of speculation and diplomatic activity following the afternoon explosion in the village of Przewodów, less than 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

The fire service initially confirmed that two people had died during the incident, which happened at a grain-drying plant. However, there was no official comment on the cause.

Earlier, an anonymous US intelligence official told the Associated Press that missiles had crossed into Poland during Tuesday’s wave of attacks by Russia on targets across Ukraine. Those included strikes in western Ukraine, near the Polish border.

Subsequently, Radio Zet, a leading national broadcaster, reported sources saying that two stray Russian missiles had caused the explosion. It published images showing the aftermath of the blast and said that two Polish military aircraft had been scrambled from a nearby airport.

Radio Zet’s reporter, Mariusz Gierszewski, later tweeted that his sources in the security services had told him that what hit Przewodów was most likely the remains of a rocket shot down by Ukraine’s armed forces.

Meanwhile, Poland’s government spokesman, Piotr Müller, announced that President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had called an urgent meeting with the government’s national security and defence affairs committee, which includes the defence, justice, interior and foreign ministers.

Afterwards, Müller and the head of the presidential security bureau, Jacek Siewiera, announced that Duda had spoken with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and that Poland was ascertaining “if there are grounds to launch the Article 4 procedure”.

Article 4 of the NATO Treaty states that “parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened”.

Duda also spoke on Tuesday evening with US President Joe Biden, while Müller announced that Poland was “increasing the combat readiness of some military units and the [security] services”.

Earlier in the evening, Patrick Ryder, press secretary for the Department of Defence, told reporters that the Pentagon as yet had no information to confirm that there had been a missile strike in Poland but that they were “looking into” it.

Meanwhile, messages of support came flooding in from Poland’s allies, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who published a video claiming that “Russian missiles hit Poland”, which he called a “significant escalation” and act of “terror”.

Latvia’s defence minister, Artis Pabriks, tweeted that Russian missiles had “landed on NATO territory in Poland”. He offered “condolences to our Polish brothers in arms” and pledged that “Latvia fully stands with Polish friends and condemns this crime”.

Russia, however, has denied responsibility for the incident. Its defence ministry claims that the weaponry involved in the strike is not Russian and accused “Polish mass media and officials of committing deliberate provocation to escalate the situation”.

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