Lloyd Austin blames Putin for Ukraine’s missile hit in Poland

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putting for the deadly missile strike in Poland that was fired by Ukrainian forces, claiming the strike was the fallout of Putin’s “war of choice” against Kiev.

“The tragic and troubling explosion in Poland this week reminded the whole world of the recklessness of Putin’s war of choice,” Austin claimed on Saturday as quoted in an AP report while addressing the annual Halifax International Security Forum, a gathering of Western military officials, insisting that international stability and prosperity are at stake in the conflict.

“Make no mistake: we will not be dragged into Putin’s war of choice, but we will stand by Ukraine as it fights to defend itself, and we will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Austin further vowed while insisting that the US-led military alliance that has taken part in numerous wars of intervention across the globe is a “defensive” alliance and poses no threat to Russia.

“Stability and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic are at stake,” the American military chief then proclaimed, adding: “The US trading relationship with the European Union is the largest in the world. So when an aggressor manufactures a huge security crisis in Europe, it hits home for everyday Americans and Canadians.”

Austin went on to concede that the American military has deployed or extended more than 20,000 additional US forces to Europe since last February, bringing the total to more than 100,000 American soldiers across the continent.

Austin’s anti-Russia claims came just days after NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed US-based reports that the missile that struck a grain-drying facility in a Polish village near the Ukrainian border had likely been fired by Kiev’s forces.

NATO says preliminary analysis shows Polish blast caused by Ukrainian missile

NATO says the missile that hit Poland recently had likely been fired by the Ukrainian military.

Speaking in Brussels following talks among NATO members on Wednesday, Stoltenberg said an ongoing probe into the missile hit found "that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks."

The projectile struck the Polish village of Przewodów on Tuesday, killing two people and leading to hasty Western media reports that blamed Moscow for the incident.

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reacted to the report by insisting that the Western narrative reflected "a deliberate provocation aimed at escalating the situation."

However, officials from US, Poland and NATO continue to blame Russia for the missile strike, claiming that the Ukrainian missile would not have misfired had the country not been forced to defend itself against alleged heavy Russian attacks at the time.

Meanwhile, the US defense secretary further described the Ukraine conflict as the worst crisis in security since the end of World War II, saying the outcome "will help determine the course of global security in this young century.”

“Russia isn’t just waging a war of aggression. It’s also deliberately attacking civilian targets and civilian infrastructure — targets with no military purpose whatsoever. Now, these aren’t just lapses. These aren’t exceptions to the rule. These are atrocities,” Austin proclaimed, noting that the war “shows the whole world the dangers of disorder.”

Austin also slams China’s military might

Alleging that “the basic principles of democracy are under siege around the world,” he also went on to attack China, drawing a comparison between the Western-backed Ukraine conflict and Beijing’s military assertiveness in the Taiwan Strait in face of persisting US military activities in the region.

“Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right, where disputes are resolved by force, and where autocrats can stamp out the flame of freedom,” Austin further asserted.

This is while the US has long been sponsoring some of the most brutal dictators and despots as well as waging massive wars and military interventions across the globe, namely Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela and elsewhere.

Russia has been conducting a "special military operation" in Ukraine since February.

Moscow says it has launched the operation in face of NATO’s failure to provide it with security guarantees amid the military alliance’s efforts to further expand eastward closer to Russian borders. It also said it wanted to protect the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk against persecution by Kiev.

Back in 2014, the two republics broke away from Ukraine, refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government there that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.

Ever since the beginning of the war, Western countries have been pumping billions of dollars worth of advanced weaponry to Ukraine, a move that Moscow insists would only prolong the hostilities.

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