Russian missiles land in NATO state Poland on Ukraine border killing at least 2 | Hacker News Reader

Russian missiles land in NATO state Poland on Ukraine border killing at least 2

express.co.uk

58 pointstosh27 comments

Could this be a result of Russian missiles becoming less accurate due to manufacturing issues? I would think they would have shot off all their oldest stuff first but maybe not.

Anyway NATO did not step in when they shot down that airliner so so I doubt they will do anything about this incident.

Russia also hit Russia in today's barrage, so that would fit?

65km or 40mi from the Ukraine border... it is not a small mistake if it was a mistake...

Nope, it was 6km from the border. And there were S-300 parts, which are Ukrainian air defense missiles

Seems missile might not be Russian: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-11-16/us-offici...

Media is quick to escalate tensions and blame those pesky Russians.

Live link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Alert-US-officials-...

"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them ... shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking ... such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."

-- Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...

This is notable for what it doesn't include: anything beyond a vague agreement to "assist" as individually deemed necessary. If Russia were to invade Poland the rest of NATO could fulfill their Article 5 obligation by protesting strenuously.

Diplomats will, before taking any response, are going to consider a great deal of context. One imagines Russia will say the missles were mistargeted and this was an error, and the NATO diplomats will accept that, while strongly condeming the action.

If the response will be this pathetic, then you can rest assured that the next batch of missiles will "accidentally" land on the Polish airport that serves as a hub for military aid to Ukraine.

What do you expect them to do, send a rocket back? If the rockets hit anything of value, it would not be plausible to say that it was an accident anymore and then it's a an entirely different situation. Also it took 9 months for something like this to happen, if it happens again within a short time frame, then it's also different. For now, maybe they could retaliate with the equipment, like providing Ukraine with those fighter jets.

If it turns out to be a Russian missile, then I expect expedited weapons shipment as bare minimum. Ukraine needs long-range missiles to hit back and take out Russian military sites and critical infrastructure, tit for tat. The current situation with long-range missiles mirrors the situation with artillery in June. Underequipped Ukranian army suffered heavily under Russian fire, but after they got modern artillery, they successfully suppressed Russians, and instead of escalation that many feared, we got de-escalation: Russia eventually abandoned Kharkiv, Izyum, Kherson. Long-range missiles, modern jets and modern tanks are needed to push them back even more. Battlefield victory over Russia is the only way to lasting peace.

That's actionable. Even if accidental. But again, the response would be a sternly worded letter.

So the question is, will this be interpreted as an intentional attack?

It is not automatically triggered, it is a decision NATO can now make whether or not to trigger

Poland has operational Patriot systems that are supposed to be protecting the eastern border from exactly this kind of attack, how'd this happen? I guess it'll take more than that to protect every inch of NATO territory.

Assuming Russia owns up to it, it will set a precedent.

I’m already seeing claims that they were Ukrainian fired S300 missiles. Even though Russia has been the one using their S300s to hit ground targets.

This comment did not age well.

From the very first moment everything about this incident looked like an accident. Turns out Poland's president thinks the same. Surely its way more likely that Ukrainian air defense missiles landed in Poland by accident than that Russia would deliberately transport them close to Poland to be able to fire them at Poland civilians.

You might wanna make a honest bias reality check after this one.

Nothing new for NATO. They have for a long while been dropping bombs in other countries. Actually much much farther from their borders.

It's not confirmed yet if the explosion was the result of a missile strike, or if it was due to dust from the grain dryer.

AP is now reporting a "senior US intelligence official" confirmed it =/

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-kher...

That "senior US Intelligence official" seems to confirm a lot of things with varying levels of accuracy. Let's hope we can get more info before WWIII.

Relax (a bit.) Even Poland is not likely to invoke Article 5 from this.

- Written from Poland

edit: added qualification

I wonder if the 2 people who died would want them to...

My guess is no, only a small subset of every country's population is that blindly vindictive.

However, if it was my family who died I might feel otherwise.

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