The world just dodged the start of World War 3, thanks to the false claims of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky over two missiles that fell in Poland last week.
The way the incident played out has made some critics question whether it was an attempt by Ukraine to set NATO at war with Russia.
On Tuesday (November 15), two missiles landed in the Polish town of Przewodów, which is near Ukraine’s border with Poland, and killed two Polish villagers.
The incident created a situation close to a war emergency as Poland being a NATO member was apparently attacked, calling for NATO’s immediate response. At once, Ukraine’s President Zelensky accused Russia of firing the missiles into Poland while an unnamed U.S. intelligence official also told media that the missiles hitting Poland were Russian.
For several hours, the impending war scenario between NATO and Russia – widely dubbed as a possible World War III – seemed looming over the world. Media sources at first continued to point fingers at Russia, based off Zelensky’s claims while Poland called an emergency meeting of its key security officials and Joe Biden called an emergency meeting of NATO leadership on Wednesday morning.
Later that day, both Biden and the Polish government stated that they did not believe the missiles were fired by Russia. Polish president Andrzej Duda went on to say:
“There is a high probability that it was a Ukrainian air defense missile.”
And by the end of Wednesday, the media was reporting a general consensus by NATO that Russia did not fire the missiles that landed in Poland. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that he sees no indication of Russians attacking it. Zelensky at first continued to insist that Ukraine didn’t fire the missiles and thus rejected NATO’s conclusion. A day later, he changed his position and expressed ignorance by saying:
“I don’t know 100 percent — I think the world also doesn’t 100 percent know what happened.”
A number of media sources reported about critics on social media accusing Zelensky of attempting to start the Third World War by pitting NATO directly against Russia. Benny Johnson of Turning Point USA tweeted on Wednesday: “Ukrainian Leaders LIED to try and initiate full-blown WW3.”
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity published an article by Andrew Korybko who accused Zelensky of attempting to start World War III. Korybko wrote:
The Ukrainian leadership was well aware of what happened but decided to propagate the most dangerous conspiracy theory in history in an attempt to literally spark World War III.
Conservative commentator and journalist Matt Walsh called Zelensky a “dangerous psychopath” who is trying to start another World War.
Realizing that the claims of a missile attack on Poland by Russia don’t hold out so well, the mainstream media has started to back off its initial rhetoric and the Bien administration created the narrative that Russia is “ultimately responsible” for the incident even if it didn’t directly fire the missiles.
For now, Poland says it is investigating the incident and Zelensky advisor Andrii Yermak is telling people it’s too early to conclude who fired the missiles; so better wait for the completion of the Polish investigation.