President Joe Biden was sleeping on the other side of the world when aides woke him there in the middle of the night with urgent news: a missile had hit Poland, killing two people.
At 5:30 am local time in Bali, where the president was attending the G20 summit, Biden, still in a T-shirt and khakis, was on the phone with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda seeking clarity on the missile’s origin. – a critical event because of the potentially dire consequences of a Russian missile attack on a NATO ally.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who was traveling with Biden, had also been awakened by a knock on the door from the man’s body at around 4 a.m. local time with news of the explosion, a US official said – news that the more American officials found out only from public reports and conversations with Polish officials.
Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with their Polish counterparts and joined Biden on the call with Duda.
Polish officials first heard of a possible explosion in the eastern border village of Przewodów around 10am. ET on Tuesday or 11:00 p.m. Bali time, sources said, and information began to trickle out publicly and brief allies around 1 p.m. ET or 2 a.m. in Bali.
As the morning wore on and more information came in, it became clear to US officials examining satellite-based intelligence systems and talking to their Polish counterparts that the missile, which landed on a Polish farm in the country’s far east, appeared to have been fired from the Ukraine as part of its air defense systems.
After several anxious hours, Biden was the first to defuse the tension, telling reporters that initial information suggested the missile was not fired from Russia.
The relief among US officials was palpable. Contrary to their worst fears, preliminary information suggested that Russia had not deliberately attacked Poland, an official said. But for Biden and his advisers, the episode still represented a situation they had long feared: an unintended blow on NATO soil, for which the implications and consequences remained unclear.
With the situation so fluid, Biden’s advisers urged calm and patience, including from Ukrainian officials.
About an hour after news of the incident broke, Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly speech that “Russian missiles hit Poland,” calling it a “very significant escalation” that required a response.
Sullivan quickly called Zelensky’s office after those remarks and urged officials to be more careful with how they talked about the incident, sources familiar with the call said. Biden and Zelensky did not speak Tuesday night, despite requests from the Ukrainian leader to arrange a call, a source familiar with the matter said.
The US and Poland quickly agreed to cooperate closely on an investigation into the strike, and CIA Director Bill Burns met with Duda in Warsaw on Wednesday afternoon, a US official said. Hours earlier, Burns had been shot down at the US embassy in Kyiv as Russian missiles struck the city.
But the incident also created some cracks in the West’s alliance with Ukraine.
Biden and Duda have now said publicly that the missile appeared to have come from Ukraine’s air defense system — a claim Zelenskiy continues to vehemently deny, which has frustrated Polish officials, the sources said.
And although Biden spoke with Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg after the strike and held emergency talks with world leaders at the G20, the president had yet to speak directly with Zelensky as of Wednesday afternoon, sources told CNN. who know the subject. .
Instead, Sullivan spoke with Zelensky’s chief of staff in the hours after the blast, the sources said, and Blinken spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
Ukraine has also asked to join the investigative team, made up of US and Polish officials, inspecting the missile site, Zelensky said on Wednesday. “We have to participate in the investigation,” he told reporters. But this request has not yet been accepted.
Back in Washington on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was meeting with Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley when an aide broke the news of the explosion and all three officials called Poland. bonds immediately after.
A little while later, around 2 p.m., a press conference with Pentagon spokesman Brig. General Pat Ryder was only minutes away. But some officials at the Pentagon had only heard about a missile hitting Poland from the media, and the Pentagon had nothing to confirm a Russian missile launch hitting NATO territory.
Pentagon officials had to decide whether to do so, knowing they had virtually no information to provide on what quickly became the highlight of the day.
In the end, an official told CNN, the press shop went ahead, reasoning that canceling the news conference at the last minute would mean exactly the kind of panic officials were eager to avoid.
As Ryder stood at the podium, he repeatedly asked questions about the rocket that he still had no answers for.
Meanwhile, Milley was in his office in the Pentagon’s outer ring, ordering his staff to line up phone calls, officials said. First up was his Polish counterpart, quickly followed by his Ukrainian counterpart. Milley bounced from one call to another, talking to other defense chiefs, as well as Gen. Chris Cavoli, the commander of the European Command, who was also working the phones.
Milley’s staff worked to get his Russian counterpart, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in line. The two last spoke in late October, one of the only times they had spoken since the Russian invasion began. But this time, there was no call and the two never spoke Tuesday night.
That night, Milley and Austin briefed Biden on what they had learned about the incident.
By Wednesday, multiple senior US officials had said publicly that intelligence indicated the blast came from a Ukrainian air defense missile that landed in Poland by mistake. The US had also shared the classified information with allies ahead of Wednesday morning’s North Atlantic Council meeting at NATO headquarters, an official said.
“We have seen nothing to contradict President Duda’s preliminary assessment that this explosion was likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Early examinations of the blast site found debris that appeared to be from a Soviet-era S-300 missile, sources familiar with the information said. The initial assessment is that the Ukrainian air defense missile tried to intercept a Russian missile but missed and landed in Poland, multiple US and NATO officials said.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Duda said that “from the information we and our allies have, it was a S-300 missile made in the Soviet Union, an old missile, and there is no evidence that it was launched from the Russian side. . It is very likely that it was launched by Ukrainian air defenses.”
The US has also determined that the Russian missile likely continued on its trajectory and either hit the intended target or landed close to it, an official said.
Zelensky on Wednesday afternoon insisted that the missile was not fired by Ukrainian forces. He told reporters in Kyiv “I have no doubt that it was not our missile,” citing reports he had received from the command of the Ukrainian armed forces and the Air Force.
Zelenskiy also expressed disappointment that Ukrainian officials had not been allowed to participate in the joint Polish-US investigation of the site and said he wanted to see “the number on the missile, because all missiles have numbers.”
“Do we have the right to be on the search team?” Zelensky said. “Of course.”
On Thursday, Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian investigators would be allowed access to the site of the attack and acknowledged that Ukraine fired an air defense missile. “I don’t know what happened. We don’t know for sure. People don’t know. But I’m sure it was a Russian missile, I’m sure we fired from air defense systems,” Zelensky said.
Only after the investigation would it be possible to draw conclusions about which missile fell on Polish soil, he added.
This story has been updated with comments Zelensky made on Thursday
