The world held its breath on Tuesday afternoon when news reports came out of Poland that a missile had exploded in a village called Przewodów a few miles inside the the country’s border with Ukraine, killing two farmers. Could this be the moment that everyone has feared since the war began in February? For a time it appeared that this was a crisis that could spark escalation of the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders into a Nato country, pulling the alliance inexorably into war with Russia and all that would entail.
It’s still not entirely clear how the missile was fired into Poland. All sides agree that the missile appears to have been a Russian-made S-300, a Soviet-era missile used by both Russia and Ukraine and designed for shooting down aircraft, drones and incoming cruise and ballistic missiles.
Examination of the missile’s trajectory made it clear the missile hadn’t been fired from Russia. There’s a growing consensus that it was most likely fired by Ukraine in self-defence against Russia’s massive missile bombardment, which Moscow declared had targeted military installations and energy infrastructure and had come no closer to the Polish border than 35km (22 miles).
