Missile attack on Poland : no takers for Ukraine story

 A missile landed in a village in Poland yesterday killing two persons. Ukraine was quick to denounce it as a Russian missile attack on a NATO country. If true, it could lead to the invocation of  Article 5 under which the attack would be deemed to have happened against all of NATO and could provoke a suitable retaliation.

Well, that's not happening in this case. Poland says the missile is not Russian. NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg thinks the missile probably emanated from Ukraine. Biden has said it is unlikely the missile was fired from Russia. So, at the moment there is no prospect of NATO getting dragged in. 

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson provides an interesting analysis. He contends that it was probably a 'false flag' operation by Ukraine intended to get NATO involved

• The missile landed in the Polish village of Przewodów in the east of the country, about four miles from the Ukrainian border. ....
• The closest Russian ground forces, who in theory could have launched this missile, are located east of Kherson. The distance from Przewodow to Kherson is 613 miles. That distance exceeds the capability of the S-300 by a factor of 3.5.

The S-300 was fired by Ukrainian forces located somewhere to the west of Kiev. It is highly likely that U.S. and Russian satellites recorded this launch. In other words, both sides know where the S-300 originated.

It is highly unlikely — hell, impossible — that this was an “errant” missile that Ukraine fired in a moment of desperation trying to take down an in bound Russian missile. Why? The Russian missiles are flying from the south to the north or from the east to the west. That means if Ukraine is firing an anti-missile defense system at those inbound missiles the Ukrainian missile would travel from west to east.

But that is not what happened here. The S-300 traveled east to west. Unless the Ukrainian operator who launched the S-300 was drunk on his ass, it is impossible to “accidentally” fire this air defense missile in the wrong direction.

Johnson provides a possible motivation for Ukraine's misadventure:

I believe this is another indicator of Zelensky’s growing desperation. Think about it for a moment. If Ukraine really had Russia on its heels, why fabricate an easily disproved claim that Russia attacked Poland with a missile? This was sloppy trade-craft. If Ukraine had used another Russian missile capable of flying the distance from current Russian lines to that farm in Poland, then the circumstantial evidence might have ignited the desired fire among the NATO members.

Johnson is among the analysts who believe that Russia is poised for a major offensive and that the end game in Ukraine is probably not very far off.