WEB DESK
Polish President Andrzej Duda has said there are no signs of an intentional attack after a missile strike killed two people on a farm near the western border with Ukraine.
RecommendedMust Read
Earlier, US President Joe Biden said it was “unlikely” the missile had been fired from Russia.
The two workers were killed as Ukraine came under fire from one of the biggest barrages of missile strikes of the war.
The Kremlin had insisted it had nothing to do with their deaths.
Poland said initially that the missile that hit the farm at Przewodow, 6km (4 miles) from the border was Russian-made.
Accusing Western states of a hysterical reaction, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Warsaw should have immediately made clear the debris had come from Ukraine’s S-300 air defences.
Both Russia and Ukraine use the old Soviet surface-to-air missiles and Kyiv said it wanted to be part of the investigation, adding it was ready to provide evidence of a “Russian trace” in the strike.
The BBC’s Paul Adams said Ukraine’s air defences had been working hard to bring down Russian missiles and it was possible that one of the missiles fired had been knocked off course.
As investigators searched the site of the strike, Nato ambassadors met in Brussels to assess how to react to Russia’s war spilling over into a member state.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters there was no indication that the incident was a result of a deliberate attack or that Moscow was preparing offensive actions against the defensive alliance.
However, he said that “Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine”, adding: “Let me be clear, this is not Ukraine’s fault.”
More than 90 Russian missiles were fired at Ukraine on Tuesday, according to Kyiv. Although the Ukrainian military said 77 were shot down, some of the missiles hit Lviv, not far from the country’s western border with Poland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said most of the rockets fired by Russian forces had been aimed at the country’s energy infrastructure.
Poland’s military was placed on high alert in the aftermath of the explosion.
On Wednesday, Polish President Duda told a press conference that although a Russian-made S-300 missile was most likely to blame, there was no evidence it had been fired by the Russian side. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki added that invoking Nato’s Article 4, which calls for consultations in the face of a security threat, might not be necessary.
