A missile of uncertain origin touches down in Poland. It kills two civilians. Promptly Ukraine's president Zelensky calls this a significant escalation of Russia's aggression.
For some time Zelensky plus officials in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have been warning us of something like this. They claim that Russia’s ruthless invasion of Ukraine was just the first expression of its territorial ambition. Next Putin would move further into Europe. That means totally defeating Putin in Ukraine is the only way to stop him.
There’s no doubt that Putin’s horrific war against Ukraine must be stopped. But as US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just suggested, it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Said Reuters, “Top US general plays down probability of near-term Ukraine military victory.” He opined that now might be an advantageous time for Ukraine to seek a negotiated peace settlement.
But listening to Zelensky’s frantic rhetoric, it seems that’s not likely to happen anytime soon either.
The missile that hit Poland is now in the forefront of concern. Headlines about it have evolved from Zelensky’s excited description to the assertion that it was just an errant missile fired by Ukraine for defensive purposes against a Russian missile attack. It was just a mistake with no intention of hitting Poland.
That sounds reasonable, but the “defensive purposes” part could just be a political tactic.
The sequence as I saw it through the media coverage was:
(1) a missile explosion in Poland kills two,
(2) Reuters reported, “Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday, without producing evidence, that Russian missiles had hit Poland, a Nato country, in what he called a ‘significant escalation’ of the conflict.”
(3) New York Times reported, “Poland, a Nato member, also said it would most likely invoke Article 4…”
(4) Russia claims to have ID’d the missile to be one in Ukraine’s inventory, not Russia’s. Says Tass, “Missile wreckage in Polish photos identified as Ukraine’s S-300.”
(5) Biden quickly takes a view, as reported by AP, “Biden: ‘Unlikely’ missile that hit Poland fired from Russia.”
(6) Then and only then did the “defensive missile” story arise. Now, according to CNN, “Poland, Nato say missile that killed two likely fired by Ukraine defending against Russian attack.”
(7) Whereupon Zelensky said “no way” to that theory. CNN quoted him, “I have no doubt that it was not our missile.”
(8) But, “US President Joe Biden refuted Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that the missile that struck Poland and killed two people was not from Ukraine” according to the Times of India.
(9) Then Zelensky, according to The Hill, told Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore, “I don’t know 100 percent — I think the world also doesn’t 100 percent know what happened… We can’t say specifically that this was the air defense of Ukraine.”
Here’s my analysis:
If you look at the Gestalt of all this it suggests a caper to trick Nato/US into the war (officially). He was unswerving in his unsupported allegations about Russia. Even in the face of friendly opposition Zelensky is adamant at pushing for Nato/US action.
But instead of holding him accountable for that, he was pandered to. For instance, I postulate that the “defensive missile” story was concocted to give Zelensky a graceful way to back down, one that he didn’t take.
Potentially the missile could have been a mistake of either Russia’s or Ukraine’s, given the missile exchanges that were going on at the time.
But Zelensky’s steadfast and unswerving commitment to making a Nato crisis out of it raises questions of whether the missile in question was an organized false flag gimmick planned by Zelensky just waiting for an opportunity to implement. I’m not advocating this as a certain explanation, but just pointing out that it would be consistent with Zelensky’s zeal for a Nato Article 4 action, possibly moving on to Article 5.
Now the story has become that it is Russia’s fault anyway. AP quoted Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg “This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility.” That’s because Russia started the hostility in the first place. This sounds to me like just throwing another sop to Zelensky. Wouldn’t it be better to get him more focused on the grim realities he faces?
This whole imbroglio illustrates just how tense and potentially explosive the situation with Ukraine really is. President Biden deserves credit for taking a measured and cautions approach as he reacted to the unfolding events. If he hadn’t, with Zelensky’s push, things could have escalated into a much larger and globally threatening war.
Shouldn’t Zelensky’s quick and unwarranted conclusions have been called out for what they were right from the start? He commands a lot of world sympathy for the terrible tragedy that has beset his country. But that shouldn’t have allowed his catastrophization of the incident to go so far unabated.
And all the blame placing and finessing of responsibility? What has it really accomplished? Placing blame is no way to find common ground. Personally, I think that energy would be better spent on finding a peaceful resolution than on placing blame.
