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| Polish Football Team Escorted F-16 Fighter Jet to Qatar |
Warsaw - The Polish national football team was escorted to the World Cup in Qatar by F-16 fighter jets. It came after a missile hit Przewodówon, an eastern Polish region close to the Ukrainian border, last Tuesday. Video of two F-16 fighter jets flying next to the plane carrying Polish soccer players was posted by ESPN on Twitter. The video has been viewed almost 2 million times. The fighter jets escorted the plane carrying the football team to the southern border of Poland which then headed for Qatar.
The Polish national football team on Friday (18/11/2022) also posted a picture of one of the F-16s accompanying their plane. The Russian-made missile that hit a Polish city on Tuesday, killing two people, was the first incident of Russia's war in Ukraine directly impacting a NATO member.
Poland says the missile landed on its territory, but the latest US intelligence suggests the strike resulted from a partial interception of a Russian missile by a Ukrainian air defense system. Three unnamed US officials told the Associated Press that initial assessments indicated that the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile during a wave of missile attacks in western Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the missile attack a very significant escalation because the war in his country continues to rage. An attack on any of the 30 members of the NATO bloc is considered an attack on all members under Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which raises concerns about a possible escalation of war in Ukraine.
However, Polish President Andrzej Duda tweeted that the incident appeared to be an "unfortunate accident", not a "deliberate attack". NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement: "The investigation into this incident is ongoing, and we need to wait for the results. But we have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack. And we have no indication that Russia is preparing any offensive military action." against NATO."
"Our preliminary analysis indicates that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory from a Russian cruise missile attack," he said. "But let me be clear. This is not Ukraine's fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility, for continuing its illegal war against Ukraine." Russia has denied any link to the missile hitting Poland, while Zelensky said in a televised address: "I believe it was not our missile."