Many underestimate how hard it is for NATO to go to war as an actual NATO coalition though. It requires a political decision and by unanimous assent. It is not something you just do if a Russian missile strikes a sedate village in Poland and destroying a tractor, killing 2. That’s not really a proper Casus Belli since most countries will assume it’s an inadvertant strike, so no way NATO could unite behind Article 5 for that alone. It would however increase tensions and mean that war would be closer (If it was Russian), but it would have needed more Russian “mistakes” to trigger real escalation.
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Sounds like unity was there for an Article 4 response though, and in fact still may be notwithstanding the likelihood that it was a defence SAM.
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It’s technically possible from Belarus, but it depends on the rocket and payload. The crater was fairly large, so it probably had a proper payload, which decreases range. So it was probably Ukrainian.
Ukraine has (can’t find the source now) also admitted that it fired 2 S-300 rockets in that direction to counter incoming Kalbr.
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I think the examples which support the point I am trying to make were stronger in the earlier days of the war. I dont consider the recent missile a part of this disinformation; recent Ukraine positions are rhetorical, justifiably so, to attract donations of more advanced defence weaponry. This is quite obvious. But in particular, I am thinking of the attack on the maternity hospital in the first weeks. There was only one casualty in that hospital and the wider film showed no leaking gas or fluids - which would be unusual for a working hospital hit by a missile. As well, a detached hip was covered with a beach towel - so there were no medical PPE available? Im sad to say I think this was mocked up, and quite badly done too.
Here it is, @RedWhippet :
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The range on that family is fairly large, the furthest range goes out to 400km. But the range drops sharply when used as a ballistic missile, and again significantly with the larger warheads. That damage just doesn’t look like a 25kg warhead explosion, and with the larger warheads the air defence range falls into the 120-200 category (about 40-60 in ballistic mode). Those range circles really limit where it could have come from.
The most likely explanation is a SAM battery near Lviv or the power plant about 40km to the SE of the strike site.
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What makes it different from 1980s East Germany, for example?
NATO radar tracking would have easily picked it up over Belarus.
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I’ve noticed AWACS (or whatever they are called now) flying out towards that direction so it does seem unlikely that they would have missed them.
They did hit it and Russia said it was a military target and that patients and medical staff had been evacuated. The bomb did not land inside, but landed outside and dug an enormous crater. They used a FAB-500.
There are many videos of its impact, but this article explains it well with graphics and picture: Mariupol hospital attack: Examining how Russian forces hit a Ukraine maternity and children’s hospital
The point was likely not to cause mass casualties but render it inoperational. Remember this was part of a military campaign where the city was taken block by block by overwhelming fire power and storming. They blew up the entire city.
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Im not sure what you precisely mean? But generally, probably very little from the Russian side, perhaps Putin’s regime is even worse than 80s Soviet.
Ok thanks I did not know this, so it was useful to raise the point 
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With civil aviation at very very low volumes (almost zero across the Belarus-Poland frontier), the sky over Belarus is pretty uncluttered. Those systems might miss or blur a missile fired from the war zone, but coming from the Northeast it would really stand out - and you can be sure the NATO systems are watching Belarus like a hawk.
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Re-reading your post, I’m actually not sure what you were trying to say, but my quesiton was more of how you think Ukraine’s readiness “to join with the West” is different from 1980s East Germany? It’s the only similar comparison I could think off of the top of my head.
Oh I see, good point. Its a simple answer, their plane of normative speech carries an expectancy and normalisation of lying en mass. I got involved in something whilst I was there, and the instinct to lie in the part of the Ukrainians was shocking to me. There is also record of continued EU fines against Poland for this type of approach, which there manifests as a corrupt legal system controlled by bribes rather than rule of law. In bare terms, lying is more expected and accepted.
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It is strange yet unsurprising how long it takes cultural norms that formed under certain types of regimes to shift. Chileans are really only in the past decade or so not thought of by the rest of Latin Americans as intensely reserved, Latin American visitors to Santiago were struck by how tiny the nightlife district was compared to the size of the city. Romanians under the age of about 35 simply don’t understand their elders. An associate who was part of the Conference Board of Canada’s Ukraine project from about 2008 to 2016 had exactly the same observation as you - a certain passive level of dishonesty is simply expected.
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Verdict post, BIG POST (sorry). Many tweets:
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I’ve thought from the outset that the EU is making a big mistake in fast tracking Ukraine’s membership application. It’s all very noble to want to display solidarity with the country , and I believe they’re already doing a pretty good job of that with their military support , but political and financial union can and should wait until a later date.
There seems to be pressure on Ukraine from someone:
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