Poland missile ‘unlikely’ to have been fired from Russia, Biden says

Joe Biden has said the missile that landed in Poland, killing two people, was unlikely to have been fired from Russia due to its trajectory.

The US president was speaking at the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, after convening an emergency meeting of western leaders to discuss the explosion on Nato territory that has the potential to take the war in Ukraine into a new even more dangerous dimension.

Asked if the missile was fired from Russia, Biden said: “There is preliminary information that contests that. I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate. But it is unlikely in the minds [sic] of its trajectory that it was fired from Russia.” He added: “But we will see, we will see.”

The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the missile as a “Russian-made” missile, a phrase that could include S-300 ground-to-air missiles in the possession of Ukraine.

“We agreed to support Poland’s investigation into the explosion in rural Poland, near the Ukrainian border, and they’re going to make sure we figure out exactly what happened,” Biden said before visiting a Mangrove germination plant with other G20 leaders.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he took Russian denials of involvement in the attack seriously adding it was likely to be a technical error.

He said in Bali: “I have met with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. There is a general impression that this missile is not Russian made and this declaration paves the way to certain facts so we should not insist this missile was launched from Russia. This would be a provocation.” He added: “Peace can only be established through dialogue and we want to establish a dialogue.”

The remarks come after Biden had convened an emergency meeting of the G7 group of western leaders to discuss the implications of the strike in Poland.

Agencies