Poland’s foreign ministry said that a Russian-made missile landed in the Polish village of Przewodów, near the border with Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon local time, killing two Polish citizens, according to a statement. Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Zbigniew Rau summoned the Russian foreign minister “and demanded immediate and detailed explanation,” the statement went on to say.
Poland also noted that the incident took place as “another hours-long, massive shelling took place of the entire territory of Ukraine and its critical infrastructure by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”
However, the statement did not address the circumstances of the strike, including whether it could have been a targeting error or if the missile could have been knocked off course by Ukrainian defenses. A NATO statement called it a “tragic incident.” Earlier, a senior U.S. intelligence official had said that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland, but Poland’s statement said it was one missile.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the government was investigating and raising its military preparedness. President Andrzej Duda was more cautious about the origin of the missile. Unlike Rau, Duda said that officials did not know for sure who fired it or where it was made. He said it was “most probably” Russian-made but that is being still verified.
“We are acting with calm,” Duda said. “This is a difficult situation.”
The Russian Defense Ministry denied responsibility for the strikes. “No strikes were made against targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border by Russian means of destruction,” it said in a statement.
In their statements, Poland and NATO used language that suggested they were not treating the missile blast as a Russian attack, at least for now.
If Russia had deliberately targeted Poland, it would risk drawing the 30-nation alliance into the conflict at a time when it is already struggling to fend off Ukrainian forces.
Polish media reported earlier that the projectile had struck an area where grain was drying the Polish village.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called an emergency meeting for later in the day of the alliance’s envoys to discuss the events close to the Ukrainian border in Poland. And Ukraine Ambassador to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya told CBS News that he expects the incident to be discussed at a previously scheduled U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine Wednesday.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the incident and spoke by phone with Duda from Bali, Indonesia. According to a readout of the call, Duda described Poland’s ongoing assessment of the explosion, which took place in the eastern part of the country near its border with Ukraine. Mr. Biden offered the U.S.’ full support and assistance with Poland’s investigation, and he reaffirmed the U.S.’ commitment to NATO. The two leaders agreed to remain in close touch as the investigation unfolds.
The National Security Council said in a statement that the U.S. is “working with the Polish government to gather more information,” and “will determine what happened and what the appropriate next steps would be.”
Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities Tuesday with its biggest barrage of missiles yet, striking targets across the country and causing widespread blackouts.
A defiant Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy shook his fist and declared, “We will survive everything.”
Zelenskyy said Russia had fired at least 85 missiles, “most of them at our energy infrastructure,” and shut down power in many cities.
The aerial assault, which resulted in at least one death in a residential building in the capital, Kyiv, 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 power grid was already battered by previous attacks that destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the retreat from Kherson since his troops pulled out in the face of a Ukrainian offensive. But the stunning scale of Tuesday’s strikes spoke volumes and hinted at anger in the Kremlin.
By striking targets in the late afternoon, not long before dusk began to fall, the Russian military forced rescue workers to labor in the dark and gave repair crews scant time to assess the damage by daylight.
More than a dozen regions — among them Lviv in the west, Kharkiv in the northeast and others in between — reported strikes or efforts by their air defenses to shoot missiles down. At least a dozen regions reported power outages, affecting cities that together have millions of people. Almost half of the Kyiv region lost power, authorities said. Ukrainian Railways announced nationwide train delays.
Zelenskyy warned that more strikes were possible and urged people to stay safe and seek shelter.
This is a developing story.
Eleanor Watson, Ed O’Keefe, Camilla Schick and Pam Falk contributed to this report.
