U.S. And Allies Say Explosion In Poland 'Most Likely' Caused By Ukrainian Missile – But Not Ukraine's Fault

The Biden administration on Wednesday backed Poland's finding that what killed 2 people in Przewodów was likely not one of those roughly 100 Russian cruise missiles targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

The move came just hours after Polish President Andrzej Duda offered a preliminary assessment that Tuesday's explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that intended to fend off Russian attacks but, unfortunately, landed in Poland.

"We have seen nothing that contradicts those preliminary assessments," State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said in response to TURAN's questions during his daily press briefing, adding that "Ukraine has every right to defend itself"

"And specifically in the actions of this week, we're talking about this because Russia decided to unleash a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, directly targeting civilian and energy infrastructure," Patel said.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected reports that the missile was Ukrainian: "I have no doubt...that it was not our missile or our missile strike," he was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Patel, in his turn, said that Washington was continuing to engage "with our Ukrainian partners and convey information to them."

"That was in large part the crux of Secretary Blinken's call with [Ukraine's] Foreign Minister Kuleba [on Tuesday]– is to convey information and to have that discussion. But as I said before, we do not have any information to contradict Poland's preliminary findings here," Patel added.

The Polish assessments on Wednesday appeared to calm concerns that the strike would cause further escalation as it may have drawn NATO into the conflict under Article 5 of the alliance's treaty, which states that an attack against one member is viewed as an attack on all.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.