NATO Summons Meeting Over Poland Blast

NATO ambassadors convened an emergency meeting to address a missile that struck Poland near the Ukrainian border, with at least two alliance countries pressing for steps to enhance air defense on the military bloc’s eastern flank.

After the missile that landed on a grains facility in Poland on Tuesday initially raised global alarm that the Ukraine war could spill into neighbouring countries, U.S. President Joe Biden said it was probably not fired from Russia.

In the early hours of Wednesday, Poland said it would likely invoke NATO’s Article 4, which is a formal call for consultations among allies in the face of a security threat.

It was unclear whether that would still be the case, after a source said Biden told G7 and NATO partners that the missile blast was caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile.

According to Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger, the emergency NATO ambassadors’ meeting will most likely focus on air defense.

“It is logical that there will be a call to strengthen the airspace of bordering nations,” he said.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said NATO should deploy stronger air defenses along the Polish-Ukrainian border and throughout the remainder of the alliance’s eastern flank as soon as possible.

“I hope by next year’s NATO summit in Vilnius we will be able to make progress, as the situation confirms it is the right decision and needs swift implementation”, Nauseda said.

Ground-based air defense systems, such as Raytheon’s (RTX.N) Patriot units, are in short supply in many Western nations, which were hesitant to invest too much money in military assets like these after the Cold War ended.

The meeting in Brussels was presided over by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who will deliver a press conference at 1230 CET.

Russia claimed it had nothing to do with the explosion.

If it is determined that Moscow was responsible for the explosion, it might trigger NATO’s collective defense principle known as Article 5, which states that an attack on one of the Western alliance’s members is considered an attack on all, triggering discussions about a possible military response.

The article 4 could be an intermediate step, providing for consultations on what to do next.

The explosion near the Ukrainian border came as Russia unleashed a wave of missiles targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, attacks that Kyiv said were the heaviest in nearly nine months of war.