“This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears the ultimate responsibility of what happened in Poland because it is a direct result of the war and wave of attacks that Russia launched against Ukraine. And Ukraine has the right to shoot down these missiles,” the NATO Secretary General concluded. Jens Stoltenbergafter the emergency meeting of the Atlantic Council held this Wednesday.
At the meeting, the ambassadors examined the latest information available on the missile that fell this Tuesday in Poland, NATO territory, which caused two fatalities. Although the investigation has not concluded, Stoltenberg has explained that “we have no indication that it was the result of a deliberate attacknor that Russia is preparing offensive actions against NATO”.
The central hypothesis used by the Atlantic Alliance is that the incident was caused by an air defense missile fired by Ukraine to defend against the avalanche of bombardments launched by Moscow against its main cities and energy infrastructures, Stoltenberg has recounted. For this reason, Poland has renounced activating article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which obliges to start consultations when an ally considers its security threatened.
[Los misiles caídos en Polonia son ucranianos: Varsovia no invocará el artículo 4 de la OTAN]
Is this the most tense moment since the start of the war in Ukraine? They have asked the NATO Secretary General. “It shows that the war in Ukraine, which is the responsibility of President Putin, creates dangerous situations (…) We have seen that there may also be consequences on NATO territory as a result of the war that Russia has launched against Ukraine“, Stoltenberg replied.
In any case, NATO is not currently considering reinforcing air defense on its eastern flank. The leaders of the Atlantic Alliance already approved at the Madrid summit to increase their presence in Poland and the Baltic countries and the security situation has not changed after the incident in Poland, Stoltenberg maintains. Of course, NATO continues to constantly review how to improve the protection of allies.
The futuristic NATO headquarters in Brussels
The assessment of the Atlantic Alliance fully coincides with that made by Poland. “There are no indications that it was an intentional attack against Poland.. Most likely it was a Russian-made S-300 rocket. But we have no proof at this time that it was a missile fired from the Russian side. There are many indications that it was a (Ukrainian) air defense missile, which unfortunately fell on Polish territory“said the Polish president, Andrzej Dudaat a press conference.
Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that “the Parties shall consult each other when, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, the political independence or security of either Party is threatened“.
Its invocation by Warsaw would have meant a new escalation in the war in Ukraine, since it can be interpreted as a step prior to the activation of article 5, the NATO defense clause. This provision -which has only been used once after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001 in New York and Washington- would force the rest of the Member States to come to the aid of Poland and would have caused a direct clash between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia.
An open conflict with Moscow that until now NATO has done its best to avoid. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Member States have provided military aid to the kyiv government. But the Atlantic Alliance has always denied being a party to the conflictbecause of the risk that this would trigger a Third World War.
This is why NATO has repeatedly rejected requests by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine. The allies have also shot down Poland’s plan to send a “peace mission” to the country.
