Ex- Russian President warns Poland incident step towards World War III

Moscow: According to reports in the media, Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president, issued a warning after a missile explosion in Poland claimed the lives of two people.

The incident, according to the former president, who is currently the deputy chair of Russia's Security Council, "proves just one thing: waging a hybrid war against Russia, the West mob es closer to the World War," he said on Twitter on Wednesday. In addition, he used quotation marks around the term "missile strike," according to RT.

Medvedev's words were echoed by Russia's deputy representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, who claimed there was "an obvious attempt to provoke a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia, with all the ensuing consequences for the whole world".

In a post on Telegram, Polyansky said it was "suspicious" that last week Western powers had asked for a UN Security Council session to be held this Wednesday, without naming the reason for the gathering, and that the alleged "missile attack" on Poland came just in time for the meeting, RT reported.

Another source of doubt was the "instant hysteria of the Kyiv regime and demands to punish Russia, which was backed by the Poles, who have already gone mad from Russophobia", the diplomat wrote.

With all facts pointing to Russia had nothing to do with the incident, it would be "curious" to see how the US and its allies will try to extricate themselves during the upcoming UN Security Council session, Polyansky said.

"It would be unthinkable for our Western partners to recognize the role of Ukraine and Poland in this dangerous provocation," he added.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was quick to blame Russia for the incident late on Tuesday, urging NATO, of which Poland is a member, to act against this "attack on collective security".

Despite not being backed by any proof, the claims were picked by the media in Poland and by some of the country's officials, RT reported.

Warsaw put its military on alert and said it was discussing whether to invoke NATO's Article 4, which would require consultations on the situation with the other 29 member states and a consensus decision on how to proceed.

Russia's Defence Ministry has insisted that it did not carry out any strikes near the Ukrainian-Polish border on Tuesday.

It later clarified that analysis of photos from the site showed that the debris were from a missile for the S-300 air defence system operated by Ukraine's military.

With inputs from IANS