Ukraine demands proof that missile in Poland strike is not Russian
The Ukrainian President cites ‘military reports’ for his claim that Russia was responsible for an attack that killed two people in Poland this week.
The Ukrainian President is demanding to see proof that Russia was not responsible for a missile attack that killed two people in Poland this week.
Volodymyr Zelensky insists on Ukraine being part of any investigation into Tuesday’s attack and has asked for access to the blast site as well as “all the data” on the projectile.
Western leaders moved to calm fears of a dangerous escalation in Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying the missile blast on the border village of Przewodow was likely an accident, while Kyiv pushed back hard at the idea that its anti-aircraft fire was to blame.
The US, like NATO, has firmly backed Poland’s assessment that the deadly missile was probably fired by Ukraine during a mass Russian bombardment on Tuesday aimed at civilian infrastructure inside Western-backed Ukraine.
Both Warsaw and NATO have said the explosion was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile launched to intercept a Russian barrage – while stressing Moscow was ultimately to blame for starting the conflict.
The White House said it had “seen nothing that contradicts” Poland’s preliminary assessment – while also declaring that “the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia”.
But Mr Zelensky said Kyiv had seen no proof the missile was Ukrainian.
“I have no doubt that this is not our missile,” he said. “I believe that this was a Russian missile, based on our military reports.”
The incident initially sparked fears of a major new escalation in the Ukraine conflict, but by Thursday morning AEDT Polish President Andrzej Duda announced Warsaw’s conclusion that the projectile likely originated from Ukraine’s own air defences.
Mr Duda said it was very likely that the Soviet-era missile was launched by Ukraine in what he called an “unfortunate accident”, but that the blame lay with Russia because of its attacks on Ukraine.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg underlined this stand and EU diplomats meeting in Brussels praised Warsaw, one of Ukraine’s closest friends and Russia’s fiercest foes, for its measured response.
After crisis talks in Brussels, Mr Stoltenberg said an ongoing investigation was expected to find “that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks”.
He said NATO had ramped up its defences along its eastern flank in response to the war in Ukraine and denied that the alliance’s air defences had failed.
NATO’s most powerful member, the US, has hundreds of troops in Poland and leads the West in supplying weapons to support Kyiv.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said American experts were “on the ground” supporting the Polish investigation.
The war has caused deep unease in neighbouring Poland, which shares a 530km border with Ukraine and where memories of Soviet domination are still raw.
And while Ukraine’s economy has been savaged by the nine-month war, Russia’s has also taken a hammering, officially entering recession as Western sanctions bite, according to official data published on Thursday.
Gross domestic product shrank 4 per cent in the third quarter, according to a preliminary estimate by the national statistics agency Rosstat. As that follows one of the same size in the second quarter, Russia meets the technical definition of a recession with two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.
The contraction was driven by a 22.6 per cent plunge in wholesale trade and a 9.1 per cent drop in retail trade. Companies have also been suffering from a lack of staff as a partial mobilisation has taken several hundred thousand men out of the workforce.
Despite the hit, the Russian economy has survived sanctions better than many economists expected, due in large part to the surge in global energy prices.
But many analysts believe things are going to get worse before they improve.
“GDP could contract even more sharply, by up to 7 per cent in the fourth quarter, said Dmitry Polevoy, director of investments at Locko Invest in Moscow.
Valery Mironov at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow said sanctions were having a delayed impact on the economy.
AFP
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