NUSA DUA, Indonesia - US President Joe Biden told allies that the explosion on Tuesday night in Poland was caused by Ukrainian air defences, but was ultimately sparked by the Russian missile barrage on Ukraine, according to two officials familiar with the matter.
He delivered the assessment during a conversation with Nato and Group of 7 (G-7) allies in Indonesia, said the officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
G-7 and Nato leaders who were meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on the margins of a Group of 20 (G-20) Summit, issued a statement condemning Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s cities and energy infrastructure.
The explosion killed two people at a Polish village about 6 kilometres from the frontier with Ukraine and sparked a flurry of diplomatic consultations, including an emergency meeting of Nato ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday. European Union ambassadors also discussed the incident.
“All representatives of EU members and EU institutions emphasised there’s no doubt that Russian aggression in Ukraine and an all-out missile attack on Ukraine’s territory are the direct cause of yesterday’s tragedy,” Mr Andrzej Sados, Poland’s ambassador to the EU, told reporters in Brussels after a discussion with his counterparts from member states.
Romania’s Foreign Minister, Mr Bogdan Aurescu, told reporters that the incident needs to be investigated fully.
“It’s too early to issue an opinion about the causes of the incident and eventual measures decided at Nato level,” he told reporters in Bucharest on Wednesday.
The blast raised global alarm that the Ukraine conflict could spill into neighbouring countries.
Mr Biden spoke after global leaders, who are gathered for their Group of 20 (G-20) meeting in Bali, Indonesia, held an emergency meeting to discuss the incident near Poland’s border with Ukraine.
Asked about claims that the blast was linked to Russia, Mr Biden said: “There is preliminary information that contests that. I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate it, but it is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia... We’ll see.”
Washington and its allies will investigate the incident before deciding next steps, he said.
“We agreed to support Poland’s investigation into the explosion,” Mr Biden told reporters. “We’re going to make sure we figure out exactly what happened... and then we’re going to collectively determine our next step.”
The meeting was convened by Mr Biden, the White House said. Leaders from the US, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Italy, France and Britain took part in the meeting. All except for Japan are members of Nato, the defence alliance that also includes Poland.
A determination that Moscow was to blame for the blast could have triggered Nato’s principle of collective defence known as Article 5, in which an attack on one of the Western alliance’s members is deemed an attack on all, starting deliberations on a potential military response.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said earlier on Wednesday that there was no clear evidence of who fired the missile, but added that it was “most probably Russian-made”.
“We do not, for the moment, have unequivocal evidence of who fired the missile. An investigation is ongoing. It was most probably Russian-made,” he told reporters.
He also said it was “highly likely” that Poland’s ambassador to Nato will request urgent consultations under Article 4 at a meeting with other alliance ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday.
Article 4 of the Nato Treaty states that consultations can be called when any Nato member feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” are at risk.
The explosion on Tuesday at a grain facility near the Ukrainian border came as Russia unleashed a wave of missile attacks targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, raising concerns the conflict could spill into neighbouring countries.
The Polish foreign ministry said the rocket fell on Przewodow, a village about 6km from the border with Ukraine.
A resident who declined to be identified said the two victims were men who were near the weighing area of a grain facility.
Not us, say both Kyiv and Kremlin
In Kyiv, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said allegations that one of Ukraine’s missiles landed in Poland were a “conspiracy theory”.
“Russia now promotes a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile of Ukrainian air defence that fell on the territory of Poland. Which is not true. No one should buy Russian propaganda or amplify its messages,” he said in a Twitter post.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address that the strike in Poland proves that Russian terrorism is not limited to Ukraine, without offering evidence of such an attack.
“How many times has Ukraine said that the terrorist state will not stop on our country? Poland, the Baltic states – it’s only a matter of time before Russian terror goes further,” he said.
The Russian-appointed head of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which is controlled by Russian forces, earlier described reports that a Russian missile landed in Poland as a “provocation” orchestrated by Kyiv.
“The situation with Poland is just a provocation, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to draw additional forces into the conflict,” Mr Denis Pushilin said on social media.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also dismissed reports that Russia’s missiles landed on Polish territory.
It said Russia did not aim weapons near the Ukrainian-Polish border, insisting the debris shown in media reports did not match Russian weapons. AFP, REUTERS