WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th November, 2022) The United States has seen the comments voiced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding the missile incident in Poland but has no data that would contradict the preliminary findings by Warsaw, US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Wednesday.
"We are aware of President Zelenskyy's Comments and we are going to continue to convey information to our Ukrainian partners but we do not have any information that would contradict Poland's preliminary findings," Patel said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said that he had no doubt that the rocket was not Ukrainian.
On Tuesday evening, Polish media reported that two missiles had fallen on the country's territory, in the Lublin Voivodeship on the border with Ukraine. As a result of the incident, two people were reportedly killed. However, the Polish Foreign Ministry said that only one missile, allegedly Russian-made, had fallen on Poland's territory. At the time, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Warsaw had no accurate information about the origin of the missile, but the next day he stated that it most likely belonged to Ukraine.
On Wednesday morning, US President Joe Biden called an emergency meeting of the G7 and NATO leaders participating in the G20 summit in Bali. Based on preliminary information, the meeting concluded that the missile that fell in Poland was not fired from Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said that Russian forces had launched no strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border on Tuesday, and that the released photos of the missile's debris indicated it was not Russian. According to Moscow, media reports of the alleged Russian origin of the missiles are a deliberate provocation aimed at escalating the situation around Ukraine.
The Pentagon announced its intention to rely on facts, not speculation, in examining the missile incident. Moreover, until the necessary information is received, Washington will not support invoking Article 5 of the NATO Charter, according to which an armed attack on one NATO member state is considered an attack on all, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said.
