Ukraine supports international investigation into deadly ‘air defense strike’ on Polish village – The Irish Times

Kyiv has pledged to support an international investigation into a missile explosion that killed two people in a Polish village near the Ukrainian border, as Warsaw and senior Western officials say the rocket was likely launched by Ukrainian air defense systems.

The Kremlin said it did not feel responsible for an incident as Ukraine tried to shoot down nearly 100 Russian missiles fired at its cities and critical infrastructure, which raised fears that NATO was involved in Russia’s war against its neighbour.

“According to the information we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side “Polish President Andrzej Duda said of Monday’s strike. on the village of Przewodow.

“It is very likely that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence,” he added.

The S-300 system is primarily used for air defense in former Soviet states, and although Russian forces also use it to strike ground targets in Ukraine, it does not have sufficient range to strike Przewodow, which is about 10 km from Poland. Ukrainian border.

“There is no indication that yesterday’s event was an attack on Polish territory. We were most likely dealing with an unfortunate event, as a result of which Polish citizens died,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said.

“Ukrainian forces, countering a massive Russian attack, launched their missiles yesterday to shoot down Russian missiles. There are many indications that one of these missiles fell on Polish territory without any intention on either side.

At least one person was killed in Kyiv in Monday’s Russian bombardment, which further damaged Ukraine’s already badly weakened power grid as winter approached, forcing power companies to impose blackouts for engineers were undertaking emergency repairs.

[ Analysis: Shock wave of missile strike in Poland unnerves world leaders ]

“We support a more thorough and extremely detailed investigation into this incident together with our partners. We are ready to give our partners the evidence we have of Russian involvement. We are also awaiting information from partners on the basis of which the final conclusion was drawn that it was a Ukrainian air defense missile,” said Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council .

“Furthermore, Ukraine demands that representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the National Border Guard Service of Ukraine be granted immediate access to the site of the explosion… We remain fully open to a thorough study of the situation and agreement on conclusions based on the full range of available data,” he added.

Early information suggests it’s “unlikely” an explosion that killed two people in Poland was caused by a missile fired from Russia, Joe Biden has said. (Span C)

Warsaw and several other NATO capitals have said Moscow was ultimately responsible for the deadly incident, as its invasion and massive missile strikes forced Ukraine to defend itself. On Tuesday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blamed a Russian rocket for the strike, saying it was “a very significant escalation. We have to act”.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said on Wednesday that the village of Przewodow had likely been hit by a Ukrainian air defense missile, and US President Joe Biden said the missile’s trajectory suggested it was not was probably not fired from Russia.

A missile that hit Poland was likely a stray missile fired by Ukrainian air defenses and not a Russian strike, Polish President Andrzej Duda said. (Anadolu Agency, Reuters)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised “the restrained and much more professional response from the US side and the US president” over what he called “the absolutely hysterical reactions from the Polish side and several other countries”.

Mr Zelenskiy said Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine’s national grid caused power outages for around 10 million people, but power was restored to around eight million of them overnight as engineers rushed to repair power plants and transmission lines.