How Russia responded to the Polish missile incident

Yesterday, during the largest wave of missile strikes conducted by Russia since February, a shell flew six kilometres over the Ukrainian border into Poland, killing two people. Before any facts had been established, there was confusion in the Russian media whether to report on the story with outraged protestation or excitement.

To begin with, Russian commentators reacted with glee. TV presenter and known Kremlin mouthpiece Margarita Simonyan gloated on social media, referencing recent Ukrainian shelling on the Russian border and taunting ‘Now Poland has its own Belgorod region, what did you expect?’.

Nevertheless, several hours after the news broke, a statement came from the Russian Ministry of Defence denying responsibility for the missile. It read: ‘The statements of the Polish media and officials about the alleged fall of “Russian” missiles in near ​​​​the settlement of Przewodow is a deliberate provocation in order to escalate the current situation. No strikes were made against targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border by Russian weapons.