Poland holds crisis meeting amid reports of fatal Russian missile strikes
Warsaw, Nov 15 (EFE).- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki convened an emergency National Security Council meeting on Tuesday following local news reports indicating Russian missiles may have struck a grain plant inside that NATO country and killed two civilians.
Those reports said the missiles landed in Pzewodow, a village in the eastern Polish province of Lublin, near the border with Ukraine.
After the meeting, Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller said an investigation into the explosion is underway.
He did not attribute the blast to Russian missiles and said Poland is assessing whether it is necessary to consult its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies about a potential threat to its territory.
Muller also said a decision was made to increase the availability of “some military and combat units.”
Besides Morawiecki, other senior officials attending the meeting included Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski, Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro.
Polish radio station ZET reported Tuesday that two Russian missiles struck a grain processing facility in Przewodow, killing two civilians.
It added that police and army soldiers were on the scene and that firefighters confirmed that explosions had occurred in that village.
Earlier Tuesday, Russia launched a barrage of missile strikes against Ukraine, mainly targeting that country’s energy infrastructure, according to Kiev.
Those attacks caused power cuts in much of the country.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, for its part, said in a Telegram post Tuesday that it did not carry out attacks on targets near Pzewodow and said any statements by Polish officials or media about Russian missiles landing in the Ukraine-Poland border region constituted a “deliberate provocation.”
US Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder meanwhile, said only that the Pentagon has not yet been able to corroborate the Polish media reports but is “taking them seriously and looking into them.” EFE
cph/mc
