How a Ukrainian rocket could have fallen in Poland: expert versions

Poland continues to investigate the incident with the fall of a rocket on its territory, which killed two people on November 15. The explosions took place in the village of Pshevoduv in the east of the country, a few kilometers from the Ukrainian border. It could be a Ukrainian air defense missile, suggested NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, fired “to protect against shelling.” The Russian Defense Ministry said it had identified the wreckage in photographs from the crash site as elements of the Ukrainian S-300 missile system.

Russian military experts interviewed by Vedomosti could not agree on exactly how the Ukrainian missile was able to reach Poland.

“The fall could have happened for various reasons, ranging from the fact that the rocket was launched in this direction. Such missiles fall aimlessly, they are designed to intercept air targets, not to strike. If the air target is not reached, then the missile should explode, self-destruct,” says retired colonel, military analyst Viktor Litovkin.

If self-destruction did not occur, this means that the rocket was faulty or its fall to the ground was planned in advance.

As a rule, two missiles are launched at one target for reliability, the expert notes: “The hit ratio of this missile is 0.9, but for a guarantee it is customary to send two missiles so that if the first one does not hit [в цель], then the second one will hit. At the same time, as Litovkin says, at that time there were no Russian missiles and aircraft in the air at that time, so the shot could have happened “by sloppiness.”

The version of the “human factor” is not accepted by military expert Viktor Murakhovsky. “This is a Soviet missile, which is long overdue to be withdrawn from service. The rocket was flying in a completely opposite direction, its self-liquidator did not work, so it exploded on the ground and killed people,” he said.

Military expert of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Alexander Ermakov spoke Vedomosti, that, rather, we are talking about flying past the target.

“An anti-missile could well fly tens of kilometers to Poland, deviating from the target,” he notes. “After the fuel was used up or the guidance failed, the warhead probably detonated when it hit the ground,” the RIAC expert said.

“We should not be surprised that this happened, but that it [залет украинской ракеты на территории Польши] happened so late,” sums up military expert Ruslan Pukhov.

The article was written with the participation of Evgenia Dubrovina