Who orchestrated the Poland missile strike? Zelenskyy says, 'not Ukraine'

Dispelling accusations about Tuesday’s missile strike in Poland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asserted that he has "no doubts" that Ukraine is not guilty of the attack that killed two people. According to BBC, Zelenskyy, who was informed by his key commanders that "it wasn't our missile,” urged that Ukrainian officials should be allowed to be a part of the probe into who fired the missile in the neighbouring country.

The Ukrainian president’s statement came after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that it was "most likely" that Ukraine was to blame for the attack on Poland, a NATO member. It also comes after US President Joe Biden said that it was “unlikely” that Russia 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 Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. 

The missile strike occurred on Tuesday when it hit a farm and caused two casualties in Poland’s Przewodow, which is just four miles away from the Poland-Ukraine border. The attack took place when the G20 summit in Indonesia’s Bali was still ongoing, thus sparking outrage from global leaders who feared an alarming escalation in the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

Poland says Ukraine likely to blame for the attack

Polish President Andrzej Duda also cast doubt on Ukraine and stated that it was "highly probable" that the missile was fired by Ukraine’s anti-aircraft defence equipment. "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.

The Polish president’s accusation against Ukraine was backed by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who told BBC that even if Kyiv orchestrated the attack, the “main message is that Russia bears the ultimate responsibility, because this would not have happened hadn't Russia waged a brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”