The war has come to day 267 and even the dangerous Polish incident seems to go towards storage, becoming just another tragic episode of this bloody conflict. “An unfortunate incident”, probably a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile that went the wrong way, but certainly “not a deliberate attack against Poland” or NATO. Even Joe Biden speaks of bad luck in the aftermath of the most dangerous day since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the fall of a missile on Polish territory that caused the death of two civilians and risked dragging the West directly into conflict in defense of an ally, tempers seem to have calmed down, narrowly avoiding escalation.
But it took an entire night of tension, contacts, warnings, meetings, while the closing day of the G20 was held in Bali, to finally condemn Russia for the continuous bombing of infrastructure, including civilian infrastructure, in Ukraine , for its part forced to defend itself with anti-aircraft fire, but not to consider the missile that fell yesterday in the Polish village of Przewodow – a handful of kilometers from the Ukrainian border – a declaration of war by the Kremlin. However, there was the usual exchange of accusations between Moscow and Kiev, with the first accusing Ukraine of “classic provocation” and of “dreaming of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia to save itself”, and the second who pointed his finger eastward without hesitation: “It was a Russian missile, we have proof.” After the information from the US 007 that hypothesized a shot off the trajectory of the Ukrainian air defense, it was the Polish president Andrzej Duda himself who admitted the possibility of an “unfortunate accident”. Echoed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
THE ANALYSIS Putin and Trump, two crossed destinies: with them the sovereign wave sets
THE COMMENT Putin and the temptation of retaliation
Here’s what happened on Wednesday November 16th