The blast in NATO member Poland that killed two people did not appear to be intentional and was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile, the head of the alliance and Poland said on November 16.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said there was “absolutely nothing” to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed the preliminary Polish findings.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL's Ukraine Live Briefing gives you the latest developments on Russia's invasion, Western military aid, the plight of civilians, and territorial control maps. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
"From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side," Duda said. "It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense."
Stoltenberg also said it was likely to have been a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to shoot down incoming missiles on November 15 during what Kyiv said was Russia's most intensive wave of missile attacks on cities across Ukraine since the start of the war in February.
Russia denied its missiles hit Polish territory, saying the reports were "a deliberate provocation" to escalate the situation.
Ukraine says it shot down most of the incoming Russian missiles with its own air defense missiles. Ukraine's Volyn region, just across the border from Poland, was one of the many Ukraine says was targeted by Russia's attacks.
“Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks,” Stoltenberg told a news conference after an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors.
“An investigation into this incident is ongoing and we need to await its outcome. But we have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack,” Stoltenberg said.
The White House also said it saw "nothing that contradicts" Poland's assessment. Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden had said the trajectories suggested the missile was unlikely to have been unleashed by Russian forces.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Russia Hits Ukraine With Barrage Of Missiles
The assessment that the missile was probably a stray fired by Ukraine's air defenses and not a Russian strike eased concern that the war could further escalate and expand over the border into Poland.
But Ukraine did not appear to be ready to accept that one of its air defense missiles was involved.
"I have no doubt that it was not our missile," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was quoted as saying by the Interfax Ukraine news agency. "I believe that this was a Russian missile, based on our military reports,” he said on Ukrainian television.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said earlier that Kyiv wanted a joint study of the incident with its Western partners and to see the information that provides the basis for its allies' conclusions.
"We are advocating a further, as detailed as possible study of this incident together with our partners. We are ready to hand over to our partners the evidence of the Russian trail that we have," Danilov said.
Ukraine also requested immediate access to the site of the explosion, he said. Zelenskiy said Kyiv should already have been given access.
The Polish Foreign Ministry said the missile fell on Przewodow, a village in eastern Poland about 6 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, killing two people.
Biden made his comments after convening emergency talks with leaders of Western allies in Indonesia on the sidelines of a Group of Twenty (G20) summit. He stressed that investigations into the incident were still ongoing, but said there was "total unanimity" among world leaders in supporting Poland in its efforts to establish the circumstances of the incident.
The Kremlin denounced Poland’s and other countries’ initial response as part of "another hysterical, frenzied, Russophobic reaction" and in rare praise for a U.S. leader hailed Biden's "restrained" response.
"In this instance, attention should be paid to the measured and more professional response from the American side," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its strikes on Ukraine on the previous day were no closer than 35 kilometers from the Polish border, thr RIA Novosti news agency reported.