Early US assessments indicate that the missile that hit Poland originated in Ukraine
Two officials briefed on initial US assessments said the missile that killed two people in eastern Poland appears to have originated in Ukraine, although it was Russian-made.
The official said that assessment is what President Biden seemed to allude to in his earlier remarks when he said the missile was “unlikely” originating from Russia,
The officials said the intelligence assessments had been discussed at the emergency meeting called by Biden on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali and would also be a topic of conversation at a meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels.
The joint statement following the G7 meeting was also deliberately ambiguous about the incident, placing far more emphasis on the dozens of attacks that occurred in the hours before the missiles crossed Poland.
A spokesman for the US National Security Council declined to comment on reports that the Russian-made missile that landed in eastern Poland, killing two people, was fired by Ukrainian forces trying to intercept a Russian attack.
“We have no comment and will not confirm this report. As the president said today, we support the investigation Poland is conducting to find out exactly what has happened,” the spokesman said.
Earlier, President Biden said preliminary information suggests the missile that landed in Poland is unlikely to have been fired from Russia, after consulting with allies at the G20 Summit in Indonesia.
“I don’t mean that [fue disparado desde Rusia] until we fully investigate it,” Biden continued. “It’s unlikely, given the trajectory, that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see.”
Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made ammunition during the nine months of conflict. CNN has previously reported that Ukraine has used Russian-made missiles as part of its air defense system. These old generation weapons systems date back to the period when both Russia and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union.
In a statement to CNN on Wednesday, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky did not explicitly deny reports that the missile originated from Ukraine, but stressed Russia’s responsibility for starting the war.
“There is only one logic to follow,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office. “The war was started and is being waged by Russia. Russia is massively attacking Ukraine with cruise missiles. Russia has turned the eastern part of the European continent into an unpredictable battlefield. The intention, the means of execution, the risks, the escalation… it all comes from Russia alone.”
“And there can be no other explanation for any missile incident here. So when an aggressor country launches a deliberate and massive missile attack against a large country on the European continent with its outdated Soviet-era weapons (Kh-class missiles) , sooner or later the tragedy also occurs in the territories of other states.”