On 15 November, two missiles fell into Polish territory and killed two people. The incident caused an uproar because Poland is a member of NATO, protected by NATO, and one of the "new European" countries that the United States has supported in Europe in recent years. At the beginning of the incident, Poland insisted that this was a Russian attack on Poland, and Zelensky also declared that this was Russia's attack on NATO's "collective security" and expressed his condolences to the Polish people who were killed or injured by the incident. The Polish Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the same day, claiming that "Russian-made missiles" fell into Poland and killed two civilians. It is even ready to let NATO allies fulfill their protection obligations, and President Duda also began to talk to US President Biden on the phone on the same day, and began a dialogue with NATO Secretary General, German Chancellor, and British Prime Minister one by one.
However, Russia argued for reason, and the Russian Foreign Ministry immediately convened the Russian Interim Office in Poland and showed it a "detailed report from the Ministry of Defense", saying that Russia has precision strike capabilities and will not launch missiles into Poland, and told the Polish side that Russia cannot accept the "anti-Russian sentiment" generated by Poland's "missile incident", reprimanded Poland's move as a "deliberate provocation" to Russia, and urged the Polish side to stop all "anti-Russian behavior". As public opinion fermented, more and more countries began to worry that the incident would allow NATO countries to personally fight Russia, which would trigger World War III.
However, as Poland and various countries spoke and investigated, the events reversed. As the investigation progressed, the Polish Defense Forces initially determined that the wreckage came from a Ukrainian S-300 system, and the Polish government subsequently determined that the Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile had strayed into Poland because of a failure to intercept a Russian cruise missile. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed with this conclusion, saying that Russia would not take the initiative to attack NATO countries, and the United States was also uncharacteristically taking the initiative to cool down on Russia-related issues, believing that the incident was caused by the launch of anti-aircraft missiles by Ukraine.
As early as the 15th, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that Russian firepower had never crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland, and Poland's move was to escalate the war. Russian military expert Leonkov also said that Russia's cruise missiles will not attack targets in Poland, and the missiles that fall into Poland are likely to be missiles of the Ukrainian S-300 air defense system, because Russia has seen similar examples before, such as Ukrainian air defense missiles that have destroyed Ukrainian houses. In fact, anti-aircraft missiles have complete ground and even sea capabilities, and the situation described by this expert is also a possibility.
As early as the Cold War, the US military's "praying praying mantis" operation in the Persian Gulf, there were cases of standard-1 air defense missiles attacking Iranian armed speedboats, even in today's hot fight between Russia and Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine have used anti-aircraft missiles to attack enemy fixed targets, just on October 18, the Russian air defense battalion stationed on the Russian-Ukrainian border used S-300 to attack the target of Krotitsi Airport in Kharkiv City, and achieved good results. The Russian active S-300 air defense system has been upgraded and more modern 5V55R and 48N6 air defense missiles since the Russian military was reformed, and Ukraine is still using the old system inherited from the Soviet Union, so the possibility of accidental fire of Ukrainian air defense missiles is very large, and the reactions of NATO countries also confirm this well. In response, the Ukrainian side said that this is a "major conspiracy theory" against Ukraine.
In the end, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg characterized the matter, declaring that NATO's preliminary investigation concluded that the incident was caused by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles, and that there was no indication that the explosion was "deliberate", but that Russia was still responsible for the incident, because it was the special military operation launched by Russia that led Ukraine to launch a defense. Although the main countries affected by the bombing currently believe that Ukraine caused the incident, the Ukrainian side firmly denied that Zelensky still insisted that the missile exploded in Poland "undoubtedly did not belong to Ukraine" and urged Poland to allow Ukrainian personnel to investigate, but there was no evidence to support his "conclusion".
Zelensky's government's excessive demands and unreasonable words from time to time have caused disgust among "allies", and the Ukrainian side even asked on the 15th that "50%" of Western aid to Ukraine in 2023 is a form of gift, in this regard, the BBC believes that Ukraine's actions have exacerbated the "Ukrainian fatigue" between allies. In fact, the missile incident also exposed divisions within NATO. The Baltic states identified Russian missiles as attacking NATO territory, called on NATO to initiate a "collective defense procedure" and asked allies to provide "more assistance" to Ukraine, Lithuanian President Nauseda declared that every inch of NATO should be protected, Latvia and Estonia suggested that NATO provide air defense systems to Poland and Ukraine, and asked the West to increase military and financial assistance to Ukraine.
Conversely, the United States, a country that has created a zone of instability in Europe, acted unexpectedly, cooling events instead of arching fires. It is clear that the United States does not want to escalate the situation and does not want to fight Russia personally, because the United States wants a controlled, continuous proxy war to extract more benefits for itself, because this war has allowed the United States to calmly absorb the manufacturing industry that cannot afford the high fuel costs from traditional European countries, so no matter where the missiles exploded in Poland come from, avoiding direct conflict between the United States and Russia is the most important thing. According to US media reports, the statement that the missile came from Ukraine was first revealed to the media by US officials.
Compared with other NATO countries, France directly stated that it does not want the war to escalate and does not want the war to continue. Macron said on November 16 that Ukraine would be mentioned more frequently in the dialogue between France and China because it would avoid "intensive offensive operations", bluntly said that he believed that China could play the role of "the most critical intermediary" in the Russian-Ukrainian war, and that Macron also planned to visit China in early 2023. Even before Scholz's visit to China in early November, Macron expressed his desire to visit China with Germany, but Scholz refused him. Obviously, the negative impact of this war on traditional European countries is far greater than generally believed, and as the new European countries supported by the United States begin to participate more and more directly in European affairs, France, which is also a traditional European country, can not sit still, whether for the so-called "European interests" or national interests, France is one of the countries that do not want the Russian-Ukrainian war to continue, but compared with most European countries, France has more strength not to be a "vassal of a big country".