Tuesday night was a tense one for much of the world, after an explosion on a Polish farm sparked fears of World War III.
The incident killed two Polish farmers, and was widely believed to have been caused by an errant Russian missile, gone astray from the Kremlin’s invasion of the sovereign, neighboring nation.
But, as day broke in Europe, a new story emerged.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday that there is an “indication” the missile that landed in Polish territory and killed two was an “air defense missile.”
“There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland,” he said. “There are many indications that it was an air defense missile that unfortunately fell on Polish territory.”
And then…
Duda said the missile was most likely a Russian-made S-300 rocket but added that officials have “no proof at the moment that it was a missile fired by the Russian side.”
The Polish president’s comments are the most definitive yet issued by a NATO leader after President Biden on Tuesday told reporters that it was “unlikely” that Russia fired the missile.
“There is preliminary information that contests that. I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate – It’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia,” Biden said. “But we’ll see.”
The news will allow much of the world to breathe a sigh of relief, of course, as it would prevent NATO from triggering Article 5.
