'Not the evidence': Joe Biden rejects Zelenskyy's claim about missile strike on Poland

US President Joe Biden showed no conviction following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s assertions that Kyiv is not to blame for the missile strike in Poland which killed two people on Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, Biden made a brief remark about Zelenskyy’s statement that “the missiles that landed in Poland were not Ukrainian." Responding to a reporter outside the White House on Thursday, Biden said that his Ukrainian counterpart’s statement is “not the evidence.”

This isn’t the first time that the US President has remained unconvinced about Ukraine having no role in the attack. Earlier on Tuesday, Biden defended Russia and said that it was “unlikely” to have fired the missile. “There is preliminary information that contests that. It is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but we’ll see,” Biden told reporters in Indonesia on the sidelines of the G20 summit on Wednesday. 

Polish President Andrzej Duda also backed Biden, while citing preliminary data. "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," he said, adding that "it is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence to protect Ukrainian territory."

Who launched the missile that hit Poland?

Meanwhile, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg agreed with Poland's assessment but also said on Wednesday that “there was no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack and no indication that it was a result of offensive military action against NATO” or its member Poland. 

With questions being raised about who is to blame for the missile strike, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he was told by his top commanders that  "it wasn't our missile.” Meanwhile, Russia has also denied having any involvement in the missile that hit a farm in Poland’s Przewodow, which is about four miles away from the Poland-Ukraine border. "No strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border were made by Russian means of destruction,” said the Russian defence ministry in a statement, Sky News reported.