Ukraine’s Defense Minister Yuriy Sak is welcoming an investigation into the missile strike that hit Poland, killing two people, after President Biden reportedly told allies the missile was from a Ukrainian air defense system.
He also said earlier that the missile's trajectory meant it was "unlikely" to have come from Russia.
"I don't want to say that until we completely investigate it, but it is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but we’ll see," Biden said.
Three U.S. officials told the @AP that preliminary assessments indicate the missile that struck Poland had been fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.https://t.co/0M7UuvvjCz
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 16, 2022
“It is too early to give any definitive answers and it’s very dangerous to jump to any conclusions,” Sak said Wednesday morning.
“I would like to just stress once again that right now, the president of Poland has said that there are no conclusive evidence of what exactly has happened. [U.S. President] Joe Biden, when he was making his comment, he was also cautious because everybody understands that this is a very sensitive issue,” he continued.
“Before any conclusions are made, an investigation must be done. So, that is where we stand,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially told Poland the strike was “a rocket launched from the territory of the Russian Federation,” but Russia denied it, calling the blame a “deliberate provocation in order to escalate the situation.”
According to Reuters, "The Russian Defence Ministry said none of its missiles struck closer than 35 km (20 miles) from the Polish border, and that photos of the wreckage showed elements of a Ukrainian S-300 air defence missile."
Sak stressed that the incident shouldn't take away from Ukraine's ongoing defense needs.
“It is very important that we don’t shift the focus now and that we continue to discuss the options for further closing the Ukrainian sky, providing Ukraine with efficient air defense systems, because what needs to happen is that we need to all collectively make sure that such tragic incidents as yesterday do not happen again,” he said.