>> hello there. this is al jazeera and these are the headlines. russia has been criticized that a united nations security council meeting after a missile attack in poland. nato and poland said the missile that killed two people was likely fired from ukrainian air defenses, but russia is ultimately to blame because it invaded ukraine. >> western countries and nato aligned countries in particular use the opportunity to call out russia and blame russia for

specifically the death of the two people in poland. they said that regardless of who fired the missile, it would not have been fired of russia had not invaded ukraine in the first place. >> the military in democratic republic of congo continues to lose ground to the m-23 armed group. the fighters are widely understood to be back but rwanda, a charge that kigali denies -- widely understood to be backed by rwanda, a charge that kigali denies. gang warfare and political turmoil have fueled an exodus from haiti in recent months. at least five people have been killed in iran by an unknown gunman at a bizarre -- i -- at a bazaar. it comes amid ongoing and widespread protest in the curious then province.

republicans have narrowly won a majority in the u.s. house of representatives. they have gained 218 seats needed to control the taper -- the chamber. democrats have 210 so far. president biden congratulated them and promised to work with them. meanwhile, the u.s. justice department will proceed with criminal probes against donald trump despite his bid to run for president again in 2024. he is being investigated for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and keep classified government documents at his home. elon musk has told her meaning twitter staff that if they are not ready to go hard-core, they should leave the company. the new twitter ceo is making a pledge to build a breakthrough twitter 2.0. they have until thursday to decide. those are the headlines. "inside story" is next and i will see you after that. ♪

>> a missile has landed in poland, killing two people. ukraine accuses russia while moscow denies any involvement. the u.s. and nato are investigating. can the risk of a spillover from the war in ukraine be contained? this is "inside story." ♪ hello there and welcome to the program. a missile strike in poland has raised fears the war in ukraine could spill over into western countries, and that has the potential to pull nato directly

in of the conflict. the strike killed two people in a polish village near the ukrainian border. poland identified the missile as russian-made, but both russia and ukraine have this weapon in their arsenals. early investigation suggests it may have been fired by ukrainian forces to intersect and incoming russian missile. poland says there's no evidence to suggest the attack was intentional. >> it was probably an s 300 rocket made in the soviet union, and there's no evidence it was launched by the russian side. it is highly probable that it was fired by ukrainian antiaircraft defense and unfortunately fell on our territory. >> poland is a member of nato which held an emergency meeting in brussels. it secretary-general says russia is ultimately to blame. >> our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was

likely caused by the ukrainian air defense missile, fired to defend ukrainian territory against russian cruise missile attacks, but let me be clear. this is not ukraine's fault. russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against ukraine. >> back in june, the u.s. announced it would open a permanent military base to boost nato defenses in the country's border on ukraine. just this week, germany announced it would announce a maintenance hub in slovakia to service and repair weapons it has delivered to ukraine. since september, the slovak airspace has been protected by czech and polish forces.

that's after the country decided to phase out the use of its soviet era fighters. mobile look low to its airspace to the world when the invasion began and announced a state of emergency. now let's bring in our guests. we have a lecturer in modern european history at queens university belfast and specialist on russia. in singapore, a visiting lecturer at king's college london and author of the book "russia up's -- pressure's road to war with ukraine -- "russia's road to war with ukraine." this is a day that many predicted would come, spillover of russia's war into nato territory. how have you rated the response? quick some not so sure it really

is a spillover of the war. that implies something quite major. if it was a ukrainian missile, then it is actually a rather minor matter. the response has been interesting. the president does not want to see escalation if at all possible. he wants russia to back off. he wants to support mr. zelenskyy in what he is doing in ukraine, but once the administration has kept its message very tightly controlled and not gotten ahead of the facts is a good thing because more than the actual matter that took place on polish territory is the symbolism it had and the heightened anxiety within various nato countries mostly along the frontier with ukraine,

so it is the psychological impact which is important. >> it does seem russia has appreciated the calm response from the u.s. might one go so far as to say this is some way to improving trust between the two sides? >> no, in fact, americans had a careful message. they suggested they did not want escalation, but at the same time, the message will be clear, and basically at this point in

time, they have a level of support for ukraine and what ukrainians are doing in russia so far. at this point, there's no sign of escalation, but at the same time, this incident shows you cannot always control escalation in these areas, in these circumstances, and this is just a reminder. >> how close do you think it was to spiraling out of control? >> once people had the slightest chance of assessment, most of the other allies do not want to be engaged, but given the uncertainty, there's a chance they will begin to get more anxious and start looking to

their own security arrangements. what this does illustrate, i think, is that nato has been inadequate in helping ukraine deal with incoming cruise missiles, which are now obviously designed to capitalize on a cold winter. what is not needed is german airplane. what is needed is high quality antimissile defense system. >> we will come back to that point in a moment. although most seem to agree this

missile was a misfire from ukraine, ukraine is still not accepting that. why not? >> it is about the credibility of their air defense systems. this is really on the point that robert made. this is one of the most important features of ukraine's standing in the war. it is worth reminding ourselves that the area around the polish border has been targeted by the russians. one strike in particular came to mind on march 13 in a place just to the west of lviv, not far from the polish border. russians said they struck a hub of western military systems being sent from nato to poland. obviously, this is a very well

protected part of ukraine given its importance as a hub, and i think ukrainians will be keen to signal to all around that this is not something they can fail to defend. >> give us an idea if you can what the investigation will look like and what more it will tell us. >> having seen the debris at the source, obviously, there will be fragmentation if it survived the blast, that might allow for conclusions to be drawn as to who's missile it was. they actually have been wondering what mistake was made or perhaps what we are not hearing is a response to russian strike and i think there is a

picture to be put together by ukraine. >> you mentioned before that the blame does still fit very squarely with russia. most saying this is russia's responsibility for starting the war in the first place. do you think that is acceptable in any way to russia? >> when the war started, that was already assigned they do not care about what the west thinks. there's no contrast, there's no trying to win hearts and minds and so forth on either side, but with this, i think the kremlin would be happy that the first strike which killed two citizens came from ukraine rather than russia. ukraine's reaction is quite interesting because, as you said, they are still insisting

it was a russian missile. the secretary of the secured council said they have proof it was russia, even though i think it is pretty clear that it was ukrainian missiles. ukraine has to play it really carefully. the basic assumption is let's just blame russia and move on from this pr the fact ukraine is not moving on and still insisting that it was a russian missile might undermine its standing long term, so they have to be careful how they play it. >> russia also has to be careful. we've had at least one rather unhelpful comment from the kremlin from former president medvedev who said the explosion shows the west is moving closer to another world war. that's pretty inflammatory.

>> medvedev has a reputation for being this vocal hawk on his channel since the war started. that goes some ways to reminding what is at stake, but i think overall, in the event an accident happen, there was a spillover, if ukraine was responsible, it would be beneficial for pressure, the way they see it, that it is actually kind of ukraine's fault. >> there really is no appetite at all from nato countries, is there, to escalate this war, to enter it against russia? >> that is absolutely true. in fact, the fact of the missile

itself is almost immaterial. this helps them illustrate to the west that unless there is greater help for ukraine, in particular in its defenses against missiles, this kind of thing can happen, so the ukrainians have been, i think, very smart from their perspective. i put those more or less in the same category of the saber rattling by mr. putin over weapons. the new -- the use of nuclear weapons in this conflict is an absolute absurdity in the sense that it would be a miscalculation of the greatest order in world history.

stern messages to moscow overall about trying to bring the war to an end and also stepping up the supply of high quality antimissile capacity to ukraine. >> we expect the ukrainians to increase their call for war of such west soon -- weapon system high-quality missiles. >> ukrainian cities have been nowhere near the groundwork, cities like lviv and kyiv now are still being struck intermittently by these russian long-range weapons, a variety of russian weapons, in fact, from cruise missiles and so-called kamikaze drones right behind the iranians, so there is a clear defensive need. i would say that with that,

comes the obvious hazard that you are packing into these cities, into these areas lots of air defense systems, some of which may be from different countries because some may come from the usa, some may come from these russian-style systems, so there's a huge need as well for ukrainians to maintain their situational awareness and make sure they are not firing by accident because that does happen, and what goes up must come down. i think that is one of the obvious lessons from this situation in poland. >> russia did actually say today that tuesday's strikes on the residential areas of kyiv were actually ukraine antiaircraft missiles, again, misfiring. do you think there was any truth to that, or are they leaving on today's misfire to excuse all the other missile strikes from yesterday? >> you have touched on a critical point, which is the

counterclaims and the claims of misattribution. russians, of course, are masters of misattribution things on purpose. there was almost a sense that the russian foreign minister was trying to portray this as a ukrainian false flag operation to try to draw the polls in. while we have to take these things skeptically in terms of how the russians try to frame what is happening, that messaging conflict is part of the conflict unfolding in parallel to the missiles detonating and causing loss of life. how they war is framed on both sides and in the media space is an important point because this is probably one of the most covered conflicts ever. we have seen blasts from multiple angles. >> this is important -- how closely are you following state media in russia? how is this incident being covered there?

>> i think pressure was quick to make the point that it was a ukrainian missile -- i think russia was quick to make a point that it was a ukrainian missile even before the polish statement. the change in rhetoric, and them saying when it turned out to be a ukrainian missile and the west ask like there's nothing to see here, let's move on, it is all russia's fault anyway, for them, it is a big propaganda when -- big propaganda win. i don't think it matters because nato support for ukraine will not be affected by an incident such as this. >> we mentioned before the u.s. is planning to open a permanent military base in poland to boost

nato's defenses in those countries that are bordering ukraine. is it enough to get that permanent base in poland, to defend, to deflect from an incident happening like this again? >> this is showing reinforcement psychologically as much as anything else to nato countries. it might be relevant in terms of helping to maintain equipment, but it is really basically symbolic. we have to be careful on both sides about this. it comes down to another point, which is at what point does one start working on what's called war termination? at what point has ukraine demonstrated that russia will not prevail? at what point will mr. putin be

able to claim he has validated what he has called his elementary objectives in his special military operation, which relates to essentially russian speaking parts of ukraine, including crimea? the important thing for wise people to start to think about how you bring this to a halt in ways that will meet the minimum objectives, and the answer, at least in part, can be found in a document called minsk 2. >> explain more. >> minsk 2 was an agreement between russia and ukraine that there should be some form of limited autonomy for the areas in southeastern ukraine that are

now under combat and under contention. neither ukraine or russia follow through on that agreement, but there has been discussion of what looked -- what could look like an outcome. ultimately what you will have to have is ukrainians having sovereignty over everything. russian soldiers have to get out of ukraine. we are already in pre-negotiation negotiations. you can hear what the united states says, what zelenskyy said, even some things being set on the russian side. one of the questions is how much damage will continue to be done in ukraine during this winter? how much damage to the supply

lines before serious negotiations really get on. these attacks against the grids are in part for putin to establish a more preferential negotiating stance. >> what is your response to the big picture, for a moment, the end of the war? how does it come about? is minsk 2 the way to go? it suggests ukraine must be open to negotiations. or sick prenegotiation's are already happening, which ukraine strenuously denies, saying it is not in a place to open any talks with the russians. >> quickly, i worked on the osce monitoring mission in support of minsk 2, and i had a ringside seat. i was in eastern ukraine and in

donbass at the time the agreement was being negotiated and ukrainian negotiators had their backs against the walls. they had to really make concessions at the negotiating table. the difference now is the ukrainians have the wind in their sales militarily. it is a very different war, a much bigger war. i read the book to explore the reasons and ways in which you could bring this to an end in the longer-term. sadly, i don't think the minsk formula is going to work now. too much blood has been shed. sadly, i think some form of defect or partition may be the outcome, and final point on this, the analysis -- the analogy i draw is the cyprus conflict, which i think has

escaped many people's active memories, but there are some diplomatic fudge is around what is and is not sovereignty -- sovereign territory and how you field -- how you deal with a partial invasion. we are still a long way away from this. we are still in prenegotiation's , but ukrainians are going to want to explore on the battlefield the fullest extent of their the occupation -- their de-occupation. >> russia's view, if it would accept sovereignty in areas such as crimea and donbass. is it a way forward? >> crimea was always left out of negotiations, but russia decided minsk was never going to be implement to. any president trying to

implement it would be facing steep political resistance within ukraine. the final argument, we are not anywhere near that level of negotiations, but the big questions is when the negotiations will start, probably in a couple of years' time. i think that is what it was always about, facts on the ground where the divided line will be. >> that does have to be our final line. many thanks indeed for joining us. thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website, and for further discussion, do go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. from me, laura kyle, and the whole team here, good evening.

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