International reactions flared up in the wake of the Polish confirmation of this shooting in the south-east of the country.
“At 3:40 p.m. (2:40 p.m. GMT), in the village of Przewodow (…), a Russian-made projectile fell, killing two citizens of the Republic of Poland,” according to a statement from Lukasz Jasina, spokesman for the Polish ministry. of Foreign Affairs, noting that the Russian ambassador had been summoned for “detailed explanations”.
“It has just been decided to raise the alert level of certain combat units … and other uniformed personnel,” Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller announced earlier.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg is due to hold an “emergency meeting” with NATO ambassadors on Wednesday, according to a spokeswoman.
Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, invaded on February 24 by Russia, is a member of NATO and some 10,000 American soldiers are in the country.
The White House said US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Mr. Stoltenberg and also spoke with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.
Paris, London and Berlin assured Warsaw of their support, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his “condolences for the death of Polish citizens who were victims of the terror of Russian missiles”.
“Ukraine, Poland, all of Europe and the world must be fully protected from terrorist Russia,” Zelensky continued, claiming to have “exchanged available information and (we) are in the process of clarifying all the facts “.
Local Polish media, based on unofficial sources, had earlier reported an explosion that killed two people at a grain depot in Przewodow.
– “Keep calm” –
For its part, Moscow described the accusations of Russian firing on Polish soil as “provocations”.
“The statements of Polish media and official officials on an alleged fall of Russian missiles near the locality of Przewodow are intentional provocation with the aim of creating an escalation of the situation”, had then reacted the Russian Ministry of Defense on Telegram.
“No strikes were carried out on targets close to the Ukrainian-Polish border” by the Russian army, the ministry said. The images of “debris published by the Polish media from the scene of the events in the locality of Przewodow have no connection” with Russian projectiles.
On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called on “all Poles to remain calm in the face of this tragedy”, after an emergency meeting of his cabinet.
And President Duda noted that there was at this stage no “equivocal evidence” on the author of the firing of the murderous missile, “probably of Russian manufacture” according to him. “An investigation is underway,” he said.
In kyiv, the Ukrainian president directly accused Russia of firing missiles at Poland, calling the alleged strike “a very significant escalation”.
His Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba had called for an “immediate” meeting of NATO and described as “conspiracy theories” the allegations, published on the internet, according to which it could be a Ukrainian missile which would have fallen in Polish territory.
In Hungary, Prime Minister’s spokesman Viktor Orban said on Twitter that a Defense Council had been convened in the evening “in response to the missile that hit the territory of Poland”.
European Council President Charles Michel announced that he would propose “a coordination meeting on Wednesday with EU leaders” at the G20 in Bali, after speaking with the Polish Prime Minister.
According to the French presidency, Emmanuel Macron “explores the possibility of a discussion” from Wednesday morning “at the level of leaders” gathered on the Indonesian island, to “analyze the risks” and “prevent an escalation of the conflict”, “taking into account the presence of all our major European partners and our major allied partners at the G20”.
– “Slap in the face of the G20” –
Article 5 of the Atlantic Alliance Treaty affirms that if a Member State is the victim of an armed attack, the others will consider this act of violence as an armed attack directed against all the members and will take the measures deemed necessary to come to the aid of the attacked country.
If an attack of Russian origin were confirmed it would constitute a serious aggravation of the conflict in Ukraine.
This shooting occurred on the evening of a day marked by an intense Russian bombing campaign on Ukrainian infrastructure, described by President Zelensky as “a slap in the face of the G20”.
Ukraine was hit by Russian attacks on an unprecedented scale according to kyiv – a hundred missiles – against the energy networks which made the situation “critical”.
These strikes, which killed at least one person in kyiv, led to widespread power cuts in Ukraine and even in neighboring Moldova, on the doorstep of the EU.
According to Mr. Zelensky, these strikes caused the automatic shutdown of reactors in two nuclear power plants in Ukraine. Ten million Ukrainians were without power but some eight million had received emergency repairs by Tuesday night, he said.
According to him, 85 missiles were fired at Ukrainian cities, from kyiv to Lviv, near the Polish border, and from Kharkiv in the northeast to Odessa in the southwest. According to the Air Force, no fewer than 100 missiles were fired.
A Ukrainian presidential administration official released a video showing a five-story building in flames.
“We were in bed (when the building was hit). We rushed down the hallway, and it was already smoky,” Svitlana Romantchouk, 66, who lived on the fourth floor of this building, told AFP. brick building with her husband Petro, 72.
– New Russian withdrawal –
Ukrainian strikes on the Russian region of Belgorod, on the northeastern border, left two dead and three injured, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
The massive strikes on Ukraine came four days after the humiliating withdrawal of Russian forces from part of the Kherson region, including the southern city of the same name, after more than eight months of occupation.
Sign of the difficulties of the Russians on the ground, the occupation authorities in the region of Kherson, which Moscow claims the annexation, had to abandon a new city, Nova Kakhovka.
This city is located on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnieper River, where Russian forces had withdrawn last week because they could not hold the right (western) bank, where Kherson is located.
The strikes also occurred in the middle of the G20 summit in Indonesia, shunned by Russian President Vladimir Putin who did not even wish to speak there by videoconference.
