Ukraine, western allies at loggerheads over Poland blast

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During the G20 Summit in Bali, US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, British Foreign Secretary Rishi Sunak, and Canadian President Justin Trudeau discuss the missile strike in Poland with their respective foreign ministers.

The missile launch that exploded in Poland sparked a dispute on Wednesday between Ukraine and its western allies, with Nato, Warsaw, and the US claiming that Kiev's air defense forces were likely responsible.

Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, disputed this, saying he had "no doubt" the missile that landed near the Ukrainian border in the village of Przewodów on Tuesday afternoon, killing two people, was not a Ukrainian missile.

At a press conference in Brussels, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated that there was "no indication" that Moscow launched the missile attack on purpose. There was "no indication," he continued, "that Russia is preparing offensive military actions against Nato."

“Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks,” he said.

Read next: Missiles that hit Poland 'likely caused' by Ukraine: NATO chief

However, he insisted that "this is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears responsibility for what happened in Poland yesterday because this is a direct result of the ongoing war and the wave of attacks from Russia against Ukraine yesterday."

Still, he maintained, “We have no evidence that it was launched by Russia.”

The White House backed Warsaw’s view. “We have seen nothing that contradicts President Duda’s preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland,” US National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Watson's assessment was echoed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who also stated that US experts are assisting with the investigation on the ground. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley claimed that he attempted to reach his Russian counterpart on Tuesday in an effort to understand the situation and head off any potential escalation but was unsuccessful.

Read next: Pentagon says unable to verify if Russian missiles hit Poland

Zelensky and a number of western states blamed Russia for launching the missile, and Ukraine's leader maintained this stance on Wednesday. “I have no doubt from the evening report to me personally — from the commander of the air force to commander-in-chief [of Ukraine’s military Gen Valerii] Zaluzhny — that it was not our missile or our missile strike,” he said on Wednesday evening.

“It makes no sense for me not to trust them, I’ve gone through the war with them.” The President also repeated calls by his national security chief, Oleksiy Danilov, for Ukrainian investigators to be given access to the crash site.

“If God forbid, some [missile] debris killed these people, we have to apologize,” he said. “But, sorry, first [I want] an investigation, access, the data you have — we want to have this.”

In response to Zelensky’s comments, a diplomat from a NATO country in Kiev told the Financial Times:

“This is getting ridiculous. The Ukrainians are destroying [our] confidence in them. Nobody is blaming Ukraine and they are openly lying. This is more destructive than the missile.”

The area around the strike, which local media said used to be an agriculture cooperative during the communist era, was cordoned off by Poland’s authorities.

Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday that Kiev's and some Western allies' initial accusations of Moscow's guilt were "yet another hysterical, rabidly Russophobic reaction that was not based on any real information."

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had not even fired on Kiev during the day’s barrage and said the incident in Poland was a “deliberate provocation with the goal of escalating the situation”.

Read next: Kremlin Spox: US, NATO root cause of everything happening

Stoltenberg said during a press conference that the incident's cause was still under investigation but he did confirm that initial research pointed to a Ukrainian air defense system. “This incident does not have the characteristics of an attack,” he said, adding that it had not changed Nato’s fundamental assessment of the threat to the alliance.

Read more: Biden slams Zelensky's denial of missiles, 'That is not the evidence'