Poland, NATO say missile strike wasn’t a Russian attack

PRZEWODOW, Poland (AP) — NATO member Poland and the head of the military alliance both said Wednesday a missile strike in Polish farmland that killed two people did not appear to be an intentional attack, and that air defenses in neighboring Ukraine likely launched the Soviet-era projectile against a Russian bombardment that savaged the Ukrainian power grid.

“Ukraine’s defense was launching their missiles in various directions and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the 30-nation military alliance in Brussels, echoed the preliminary Polish findings, saying: “We have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack.”

The initial assessments of Tuesday’s deadly missile landing appeared to dial back the likelihood of the strike triggering another major escalation in the nearly 9-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine . If Russia had deliberately targeted Poland, that could have risked drawing NATO into the conflict.

Still, Stoltenberg and others laid overall but not specific blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

“This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility,” Stoltenberg said.

Before the Polish and NATO assessments, U.S. President Joe Biden had said it was “unlikely” that Russia fired the missile but added: “I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened.”

Police officers work outside a grain depot where, according to the Polish government, an explosion of a Russian-made missile killed two people in Przewodow, Poland, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022. Poland said Wednesday that a Russian-made missile fell in the country’s east, killing two people, though U.S. President Joe Biden said it was "unlikely” it was fired from Russia. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradicted information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told The Associated Press that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

Ukraine, once part of the Soviet Union, fields Soviet- and Russian-made weaponry, including air-defense missiles, and has also seized many more Russian weapons while beating back the Kremlin’s invasion forces.

Ukrainian air defenses worked furiously against the Russian assault Tuesday on power generation and transmission facilities, including in Ukraine’s western region that borders Poland. Ukraine’s military said 77 of the more than 90 missiles fired were brought down, along with 11 drones.

Russia said it didn’t launch the missile that landed in Poland. A Defense Ministry spokesman said no Russian strike Tuesday was closer than 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Ukraine-Poland border. The Kremlin denounced Poland’s and other countries’ initial response and, in rare praise for a U.S. leader, hailed Biden’s “restrained, much more professional reaction.”

“We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied, Russo-phobic reaction that was not based on any real data,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Still, Ukraine was under countrywide Russian bombardment Tuesday by barrages of cruise missiles and exploding drones, which clouded the initial picture of what exactly happened in Poland and why.

The Polish president said the projectile was “most probably” a Russian-made S-300 missile dating from the Soviet era.

“It was a huge blast, the sound was terrifying.” said Ewa Byra, the primary school director in the eastern village of Przewodow, where the missile struck. She said she knew both men who were killed — one was the husband of a school employee, the other the father of a former pupil.

Another resident, 24-year-old Kinga Kancir, said the men worked at a grain-drying facility, one as a guard, the other driving tractors.

“It is very hard to accept,” she said. “Nothing was going on and, all of a sudden, there is a world sensation.”

In Europe, NATO members Germany and the U.K. laced calls for a through investigation with criticism of Moscow.

“This wouldn’t have happened without the Russian war against Ukraine, without the missiles that are now being fired at Ukrainian infrastructure intensively and on a large scale,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “This is the cruel and unrelenting reality of Putin’s war.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a very significant escalation.” On the other end of the spectrum, China called for calm and restraint.

Damage in Ukraine from the aerial assault was extensive and swaths of the country were without power. Zelenskyy said about 10 million people lost electricity but tweeted overnight that 8 million were subsequently reconnected, with repair crews laboring through the night. Previous Russian strikes had already destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure.

Ukraine said the bombardment was the largest on its power grid so far. Pope Francis said it caused him “great pain and concern.”

A Washington-based think thank, the Institute for the Study of War, said Ukraine’s downing of so many Russian missiles Tuesday “illustrates the improvement in Ukrainian air defenses in the last month,” which are being bolstered with Western-supplied systems. Sweden said Wednesday an air defense system with ammunition would form part of its latest and largest package of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, worth $360 million.

The U.S. has been Ukraine’s largest supporter, providing $18.6 billion in weapons and equipment. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said flows of U.S. weapons and assistance would continue “throughout the winter so that Ukraine can continue to consolidate gains and seize the initiative on the battlefield.”

Tuesday’s assaults killed one person in a residential building in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. It followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes — the retaking last week of the southern city of Kherson.

The Russian bombardment also affected neighboring Moldova . It reported massive power outages after the strikes in Ukraine disconnected a power line to the small nation.

With its battlefield losses mounting, Russia has increasingly resorted to targeting Ukraine’s power grid, seemingly hoping to turn the approach of winter into a weapon by leaving people in the cold and dark.

波兰普热沃多夫（美联社）——北约成员国波兰和北约领导人周三均表示，波兰农田发生的导弹袭击造成两人死亡，这似乎并非蓄意袭击，邻国乌克兰的防空系统很可能发射了这枚苏联时代的导弹，以对抗俄罗斯对乌克兰电网的轰炸。

波兰总统安杰伊·杜达表示：“乌克兰防空部队向各个方向发射导弹，极有可能其中一枚导弹不幸落入波兰领土。没有任何迹象表明这是一起蓄意攻击波兰的事件。”

北约秘书长延斯·斯托尔滕贝格在布鲁塞尔举行的由 30 个成员国组成的军事联盟会议上，呼应了波兰的初步调查结果，他说：“我们没有迹象表明这是蓄意攻击的结果。”

周二那次致命导弹袭击的初步评估似乎降低了此次袭击引发持续近9个月的俄罗斯入侵乌克兰局势再次重大升级的可能性。如果俄罗斯蓄意袭击波兰，则可能将北约卷入冲突。

不过，斯托尔滕贝格等人将战争的总体责任归咎于俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京，但没有具体说明原因。

斯托尔滕贝格说：“这不是乌克兰的错。俄罗斯负有最终责任。”

在波兰和北约进行评估之前，美国总统乔·拜登曾表示，俄罗斯发射导弹“不太可能”，但他补充说：“我将确保我们查明究竟发生了什么。”

2022年11月16日星期三，在波兰普热沃杜夫，警察在一处粮仓外执勤。据波兰政府称，一枚俄罗斯制造的导弹在该粮仓爆炸，造成两人死亡。波兰方面周三表示，一枚俄罗斯制造的导弹落入该国东部，造成两人死亡。但美国总统乔·拜登表示，这枚导弹“不太可能”是从俄罗斯发射的。（美联社照片/米哈尔·迪尤克）

三名美国官员表示，初步评估显示，这枚炮弹是乌克兰军队向来袭的俄军发射的。这些官员要求匿名，因为他们没有被授权公开讨论此事。

这一评估以及拜登在印尼举行的二十国集团峰会上的讲话，与周二早些时候一位美国高级情报官员告诉美联社的消息相矛盾，该官员称俄罗斯导弹已进入波兰境内。

乌克兰曾是苏联的一部分，目前装备有苏联和俄罗斯制造的武器，包括防空导弹，并且在击退克里姆林宫入侵部队的过程中还缴获了许多俄罗斯武器。

周二，乌克兰防空部队全力拦截了俄罗斯对包括乌克兰西部与波兰接壤地区的发电和输电设施的袭击。乌克兰军方称，在俄罗斯发射的90多枚导弹中，有77枚被击落，另有11架无人机被击落。

俄罗斯方面表示，落入波兰境内的导弹并非其发射。国防部发言人称，周二俄罗斯的任何一次袭击都未靠近乌克兰-波兰边境35公里（22英里）。克里姆林宫谴责了波兰和其他国家的最初反应，并罕见地赞扬了美国领导人拜登“克制且更加专业的反应”。

克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫表示：“我们又一次目睹了歇斯底里、疯狂的仇俄反应，而这种反应没有任何真实数据依据。”

尽管如此，周二乌克兰全国范围内遭到俄罗斯的轰炸，巡航导弹和无人机爆炸，这使得波兰究竟发生了什么以及为什么发生这一切的最初情况变得扑朔迷离。

波兰总统表示，该弹丸“极有可能”是苏联时期俄罗斯制造的S-300导弹。

“爆炸声巨大，声音震耳欲聋。”导弹击中普热沃杜夫村（东部村庄）的小学校长伊娃·比拉说道。她说她认识两名遇难者——一位是学校员工的丈夫，另一位是她以前学生的父亲。

另一位居民，24 岁的金加·坎西尔说，这两名男子在一家粮食烘干厂工作，一人是保安，另一人是拖拉机司机。

“这很难接受，”她说。“什么事都没发生，突然之间就引起了全世界的轰动。”

在欧洲，北约成员国德国和英国在呼吁进行彻底调查的同时，也对莫斯科提出了批评。

德国总理奥拉夫·朔尔茨表示：“如果没有俄罗斯对乌克兰发动的战争，如果没有现在正密集、大规模地向乌克兰基础设施发射导弹，这一切就不会发生。”

英国首相里希·苏纳克表示：“这就是普京战争残酷无情的现实。”

乌克兰总统泽连斯基称之为“事态的重大升级”。而中国则呼吁各方保持冷静和克制。

空袭对乌克兰造成了广泛的破坏，该国大片地区断电。泽连斯基称约有1000万人断电，但他在推特上连夜表示，已有800万人恢复供电，抢修人员通宵工作。此前俄罗斯的空袭已摧毁了该国约40%的能源基础设施。

乌克兰方面称，这是该国电网迄今为止遭受的最大规模轰炸。教皇方济各表示，这令他“深感痛心和担忧”。

总部位于华盛顿的智库“战争研究所”表示，乌克兰周二击落如此多的俄罗斯导弹“表明乌克兰防空系统在过去一个月中得到了提升”，而这些系统正得到西方提供的装备的加强。瑞典周三表示，一套包含弹药的防空系统将作为其最新也是规模最大的向乌克兰提供的军事和人道主义援助的一部分，该援助总额达3.6亿美元。

美国一直是乌克兰最大的支持者，提供了价值186亿美元的武器装备。美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀表示，美国将继续向乌克兰提供武器和援助，“直至冬季结束，以便乌克兰能够继续巩固战果，并在战场上掌握主动权。”

周二发生在乌克兰首都基辅一栋居民楼的袭击事件造成一人死亡。此前数日，乌克兰举国欢腾，因为该国上周取得了一项重大军事胜利——收复南部城市赫尔松。

俄罗斯的轰炸也影响了邻国摩尔多瓦。据报道，乌克兰的空袭导致一条输电线路中断，摩尔多瓦也因此出现大面积停电。

随着战场损失不断增加，俄罗斯越来越多地将目标转向乌克兰的电网，似乎希望利用冬季的临近，让人们陷入寒冷和黑暗之中，从而将冬季变成一种武器。