US President says unlikely that missile that hit Poland fired from Russia

The US President said overnight that it was unlikely that a Russian-made missile that impacted on Polish soil, killing two persons, was fired from Russia.

"I don't want to say until we completely investigate," Joe Biden reportedly said overnight, according to CNBC.

"It is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but we'll see."

In earlier remarks to CNN, former North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commander, James Stavridis, had said that it was extremely unlikely that Putin had launched an "intentional attack".

Stavridis reportedly added that the missile may have been wrongly programmed or went haywire.

Some observers pointed out how during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there had been incidents of US cruise missiles falling by error in Iran and Turkey.

So too, during Russia's intervention in Syria in 2015, at least four cruise missiles had fallen in Iran.

Another possibility was that what fell in Poland were the remains of a downed missile that had been aimed elsewhere.

Nonetheless, Biden said NATO allies supported Poland's investigation into the events and sent his condolences for those killed, while lambasting Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure and reaffirming America's commitment to the defensive alliance.

Immediately after reports of the missile incident broke, Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had labelled the incident a "significant escalation" on the part of Moscow.

The renewed attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure the day before came shortly after Zelensky unveiled a 10 point peace plan that Moscow labelled unrealistic.

"NATO must digest this grave situation before allies move into combat readiness," said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.

"Even if the missiles that crossed the Polish border were indeed deemed Russian and not Ukrainian anti-missile interceptors, the case would fall short of triggering an escalation at this point; hence the markets are deferring to a wartime mistake believing this to be a case of misfire."