President Duda on missile blast: it wasn't an attack on Poland

"Ukraine was defending itself, which is obvious and understood. Including firing missiles meant to shoot down Russian missiles," Poland's President Andrzej Duda said ahead of a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday. He was referring to a mass missile attack on Ukraine carried out by Russia on Tuesday. Clearly, the Russian side bears the blame for yesterday's clash," he added.

"Therefore, we were dealing with a very serious clash caused by the Russian side, just like the whole conflict. In essence, the Russian side carries the blame for yesterday's clash," he underscored.

He then informed that the blast in the village of Przewodów was not an attack on Poland. "Nothing, absolutely nothing, suggests it was an attack on Poland. What did happen - namely a missile falling on our territory - was not intentional. It wasn't a missile aimed at, fired at Poland. In essence, it wasn't an attack on Poland," Andrzej Duda stressed.

"Who fired this missile? At the moment we have no evidence that this missile was fired by the Russian side. However, there are many indications it was a missile used by anti-aircraft defence, that is it was used by the Ukrainian defence forces," the president said.

"We have absolutely no indication or trace which would allow us to state that it was an attack on Poland, that this missile was fired intentionally in order to hit the Polish territory - most likely it was a tragic accident," he added.

He also said that most likely it had been a Soviet-made missile from the 1970s, but there was no evidence it had been fired by Russia. "It's highly likely it was a Ukrainian defence missile."

President Duda added that preliminary examination of the site showed it had not been a classic explosion charge blast, but "most likely it was caused by a simple fall of the missile possibly combined with the explosion of fuel that was still there".