Nato to meet amid uncertainty over missile that hit Poland

Uncertainty still surrounds what happened with the missile that struck the village of Przewodów in Poland, six miles from the Ukrainian border, which killed two farm workers last night. President Joe Biden has said that the missile’s trajectory means it is ‘unlikely’ it was fired from Russia. At the moment, it is unclear whether it was a missile fired by Russian forces in Ukraine, one knocked off its course by a Ukrainian interception – or a Ukrainian air defence missile gone astray. There are reports this morning that the initial US verdict is that it was probably a Ukrainian air defence missile. But there is no getting away from the fact that if Russia was not loosing off missiles, this incident would never have happened – and there would not have been two deaths on Nato soil.   

The situation does, though, seem calmer this morning. Last night, Ukraine – for understandable reasons – described the incident as ‘a very significant escalation’ and an ‘attack on collective security’. If this had been the case, we would have been in a very different place this morning, with intense debate about how Nato should respond. But the possibility that this strike was an intentional Russian act (or a so-called ‘deliberate accident’) has receded significantly. Nato ambassadors are meeting later today but the pressure on that meeting is lower than would have been expected last night. Indeed, Poland has not yet invoked Article 4 – which leads to discussions among all members about an issue of concern.

We now wait to see what the Polish investigation into the strike concludes. But the whole incident has further strengthened the case for bolstering the air defences of both Poland and Ukraine.  

Update: The Polish President has just said that the incident appears to be an ‘unfortunate accident’ not an ‘intentional attack’.