Missile hits Poland: how serious is the threat?
A suspected Russian cruise missile entered Polish airspace during a barrage of Russian airstrikes on Ukraine and crashed into a field in the east of the country. Poland's Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, described the incident as "very serious” but said there was no reason to believe that Poland had been deliberately targeted. Commentators discuss how serious the threat is.
Real danger of escalation
The fact that this was probably not a deliberate attack on Poland is hardly reassuring, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
“What would have happened if the Russian missile – which may have gone off course – had taken a slightly different path and struck one of the surrounding villages? As long as Russia's war against Ukraine continues unabated, there is a real danger of an escalation that could draw Nato directly into the conflict.”
No coincidence
Rzeczpospolita suspects that Russia wanted to send a message:
“It's no coincidence that Russia attacked Lviv on the night after Volodymyr Zelensky's meetings with Donald Trump in the US and then with Donald Tusk in Lublin. ... The Kremlin loves to send signals like this, aimed at showing that it doesn't care about anything or anyone and that it is prepared to wage war against the whole world. This isn't true, of course, but it's what the Russians want us to believe. This, too, is part of Russia's confrontation with the Western world.”
Probably just an accident
Onet rejects the idea that this was a deliberate Russian provocation:
“It is possible that the missile malfunctioned or that its navigation systems were disrupted by Ukrainian electronic warfare systems to such an extent that it veered off course and crashed in Poland. In theory it is of course also possible that the Russians deliberately fired a missile that landed not far from the city [of Lublin], where Donald Tusk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had met the previous day. However, this last hypothesis seems somewhat far-fetched. It's hard to imagine that the Russians could even theoretically expect that Poland would change its policy towards Russia in any way as a result of this incident.”
This can no longer be ignored
After the incidents in Poland and Romania, Radio Kommersant FM sees Europe's political leaders under pressure to act:
“It's reasonable to assume that such incidents will become more frequent as hostilities spread across Ukraine's territory. Europe and Nato clearly have no desire to respond to such incidents – ideally, they would prefer to just ignore them altogether – but they have no choice. ... Of course they can continue to pretend that nothing happened. But Western democracies are obliged to take account of public opinion and people will ask more and more questions. So there will have to be a response at some stage. Otherwise, voters will vote for other, more decisive leaders.”
Tensions rising
La Repubblica comments:
“The war in Ukraine is spilling over into the EU and the Atlantic alliance's territory. This is further confirmation that an incident could occur at any moment. Tensions quickly escalated. An F-16 fighter jet was deployed to monitor the trajectory of the Kh-101 missile, which – according to initial reports – was initially heading directly for Ukraine and fortunately struck an uninhabited area in the Lublin Voivodeship, 75 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. ... Although the EU and Nato took immediate action to protect their ally, they also tried to play down the incident by emphasising that the missile had not been aimed at Poland.”
Shoot down missiles before they reach Nato border
Poland should start carrying out air defence missions in the airspace over Ukraine's western regions, according to 24tv.ua:
“Polish fighter jets and air defence systems could destroy Russian missiles before they reach the Nato border. This would not mean that Poland is 'entering the war' but simply that it is taking action to protect itself. After all, a missile flying over Volhynia towards the Polish border poses a threat not only to Ukraine. Last night's events made this abundantly clear once again.”