Falling of a missile in Poland: NATO members discussed the application of Article 4 of the Alliance Treaty

NATO member countries discussed the application of Article 4 of the Treaty on the Alliance, which provides for the start of official consultations with the state that is threatened with danger. The discussion took place against the background of the deaths of civilians as a result of a rocket falling in Przewodów, Poland.

Czech Ambassador to NATO Jakob Landovsky stated this in a comment to Suspilne.

"The main topic was whether our Polish partner, who was affected, would ask the Alliance to take further steps, for example, to intensify NATO Article 4 consultations. But due to direct communications with the leaders, Poland did not ask us for Article 4 consultations. I hope it will not be considered, because, letʼs say, because of one felled tree on the Polish side, we should not burn the entire forest with missile attacks on the territory of Ukraine," Landovsky explained.

According to him, the parties also discussed the role and guilt of Russia in the tragedy. The official noted that NATO is considering the possibility that the missile was fired by the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces.

"The Secretary-General said today that the most likely scenario is that a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile tried to shoot down a Russian missile and, unfortunately, hit the territory of Poland. But this does not mean that this is Ukraineʼs mistake; after all, it is Russiaʼs mistake. Without the Russian attacks, nothing like this would have happened," he emphasized.

• On November 15, the Associated Press (AP) agency, citing a senior US intelligence official, said that Russian missiles had crossed the border of Poland, a NATO member, and landed on its territory, killing two people.
• Later, it became known that the government of Poland increased the combat readiness of the army after the explosion near the border with Ukraine. President of the country Andrzej Duda held telephone talks with US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Duda also called an emergency meeting of the Security Council of Poland for Wednesday.
• Polish President Andrzej Duda said that a Russian-made missile from the S-300 anti-aircraft complex fell on the territory of his country. He emphasized that there is currently no evidence that this was a deliberate attack on Poland.