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Przewodów blast: who fired the missile?
Summary
A retrospective on the 15 November 2022 explosion in eastern Poland and how the first account of its origin shifted.
What did the explosion in Przewodów actually show? On 15 November 2022, a missile strike killed two people in the village in eastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine. It happened during Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
The question of who fired the missile quickly became central. As reported at the time, Ukraine initially accused Russia of striking Poland. US officials, however, told the Associated Press that preliminary findings suggested the missile had been fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile. The President of the United States, Joe Biden, then said the blast was caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile.
Why it mattered
The incident was the first in which a foreign missile hit NATO territory during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That made the attribution significant: the early US assessment pointed to an air defence missile fired in response to a Russian attack, not to a direct strike on Poland.
What came later
The US assessment was later confirmed. In September 2023, the Polish Prosecutor's Office stated that the explosion was caused by an out-of-control Ukrainian S-300 air defence missile.
