A day after a deadly explosion in Poland raised anxieties that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spill into the territory of a NATO member, representatives of the alliance planned to meet on Wednesday morning in Brussels to discuss the blast.
The explosion on Tuesday, in a farming village about four miles from the Ukrainian border, killed two people, according to Poland’s government. The leaders of Ukraine, which is not in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, called the incident an intentional Russian strike on a NATO member. But the Kremlin denied involvement, and no evidence has emerged that the strike was intentional, or that Russia was responsible.
The United States and its allies offered their “full support and assistance” for the Polish investigation into the blast.
While the Polish Foreign Ministry said the missile was Russian-made, the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, told reporters, “It was most likely a Russian-made missile, but this is all still under investigation at the moment.” Both Ukraine and Russia use Soviet-era Russian made missiles.
President Biden said on Wednesday that initial information about the missile’s trajectory suggested that it was “unlikely” that it was fired from Russia. But it was unclear from the president’s remarks whether he meant the missile had probably not been fired from inside Russia’s territorial borders, or had probably not been fired by Russian forces in Ukraine or elsewhere.
Mr. Biden spoke to reporters on the Indonesian island of Bali after attending an emergency meeting of leaders from NATO and the Group of 7 nations on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit. That summit has been dominated by the war in Ukraine and its effects on the global economy, with Mr. Biden and allied leaders repeating on Tuesday their denunciations of Russia’s invasion. Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, skipped the summit.
The explosion in Poland happened on a day when Russia unleashed one of its broadest barrages of aerial strikes against Ukraine since its invasion began in February, firing about 90 missiles at targets across the country, primarily electrical infrastructure.
Russia’s Defense Ministry insisted that it had not fired at targets near the Polish border. But Russian rocket strikes were reported in Ukraine’s Volyn region, which lies across the border from Przewodow, the Polish village where the blast occurred.
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Military analysts noted that both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries could be using Russian-made missiles, leaving open a number of possible causes for the explosion. It could have involved a Russian missile that flew off course or was knocked off its trajectory by an intercepting Ukrainian air defense missile, or a missile fired by Ukraine to shoot down an incoming Russian strike.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that he believed “this has nothing to do with Russia.” He told a news conference in Bali: “Maybe this is a technical mistake, or any other explanation will be found.”
The United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “very concerned” by the explosion. “It is absolutely essential to avoid escalating the war in Ukraine,” he said in a statement.
Since the beginning of the war, the United States and its allies have sought to keep the fighting limited to Ukrainian territory and to avoid direct confrontation with Russia, even as NATO members have supplied a steady stream of weapons to Kyiv.
But if the explosion is determined to have been a deliberate attack, it could have broad consequences. Article 5 of the NATO charter commits its members to mutual defense, stating that an attack on one is an attack on all. That could be taken as requiring a concerted response to the blast in Poland. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, eager for more NATO support, said Tuesday that Russia had committed an “attack on collective security,” hinting at Article 5.
Under Article 4 of the charter, any member country can request a formal consultation among all members on an issue of concern. A spokesman for the Polish government had said that it was considering invoking the provision.
Late on Tuesday, the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and the secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, spoke with their Polish counterparts. Mr. Austin assured Poland’s defense minister “of the ironclad commitment of the United States to defend Poland,” according to a statement provided by the Pentagon.
