After reports of Russian rocket attacks on Polish soil, Warsaw put units of its army on high alert. Several combat units and “other uniformed” troops would be put on increased readiness, a government spokesman said after an emergency meeting of the National Security Council on Tuesday evening. Previously there had been reports that two Russian missiles had landed in Poland. EU and NATO officials expressed concern but initially did not confirm the reports.
The US and NATO said they are reviewing the reports of the missile hits. However, there was initially no official confirmation from Warsaw, Washington or Brussels.
Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller did not mention the reports of rocket attacks after the Security Council’s crisis meeting in the evening and emphasized that investigators were on site after an explosion in the east of the country that killed two people “to clarify what happened”. According to Polish media reports, the explosion happened in a grain warehouse in the village of Przewodow near the border with Ukraine.
Moscow denies
In a first reaction, the government in Moscow rejected the reports as “provocations” intended to cause an escalation. Images of debris in Przewodow published in the Polish media were “not related to Russian firepower”.
This picture is supposed to show the impact of the Russian rockets. It has not yet been possible to determine whether the picture corresponds to the truth.
Foto: Screenshot Twitter
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned against hasty reactions. “It is important that all facts are established,” Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter after a phone call with Polish President Andrzej Duda: “NATO is monitoring the situation and the alliance partners are coordinating closely.” The US State Department said Washington would “clarify what happened and what the appropriate next steps would be.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directly accused Russia of firing rockets at Poland, causing a “very significant escalation”. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba called for an “immediate” NATO summit to discuss a joint response. He also rejected the suspicion that a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile could have landed on Polish territory. This is a “conspiracy theory” promoted by Russia, he wrote on Twitter.
Article 4 of NATO
According to NATO, the government in Warsaw could theoretically invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty and demand a discussion between the 30 allies. Such a decision has not yet been made, it said in Brussels.
In Article 4, the NATO states pledge to “consultation” in all cases in which a member sees “its territorial integrity, political independence or security” at risk. However, this does not necessarily result in common steps.
Russia fired dozens of rockets at Ukrainian cities on Tuesday, including Lviv near the border with Poland. According to Kiev, the attacks led to power outages in around seven million households. Moldova, which borders Ukraine, also reported power outages as a result of the attacks on Ukraine and called on Russia to “stop the destruction immediately”.