The Poland missile incident is a reminder of how wars can so easily escalate

Editorial: It arrived as the Russians were launching yet another mass indiscriminate attack on Ukrainian cities

President Zelensky chose a video call to the G20 to outline his terms for peace, which is at least a signal of intent (AFP/Getty)

In war, accidents happen, and wise generals tend to hold to the axiom that “first reports are usually wrong”. So it has been with the airborne missile that landed in Poland close to the Ukrainian border, which killed two Polish civilians and caused some damage to property.

It arrived as the Russians were launching yet another indiscriminate attack on Ukrainian cities, and it looked perfectly possible that one of their rockets had either gone astray or had struck Nato territory “accidentally on purpose”.

The immediate lesson that has been learned is that the West needs to supply more and better air-defence systems to Eastern European allies, and to Ukraine itself. Russia, failing on the battlefield, clearly has a strategy of destroying civilian infrastructure to grind down Ukrainian resistance. Hence the random terror attacks on apartment blocks, water supplies and power stations.