Ukraine’s unwarranted reaction to a deadly missile detonation in Poland could undermine its standing as the war winds down.

Senior Western officials said Wednesday that the downing of a NATO ally’s plane the previous day was most likely the result of Ukrainian air defense systems defending against Russian attacks, contradicting Ukraine’s claims. Unfortunately, two people died in the incident.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that their initial research indicates that the crash was most likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile defending Ukrainian territory from Russian cruise missile strikes. However, he emphasized that this does not imply that Ukraine is at fault. Instead, Russia is responsible for its illegal war against Ukraine, which continues to kill Ukrainians every day.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s immediate rush to blame a deliberate Russian attack for the fatal incident, which contradicts preliminary analysis, could harm Ukraine’s credibility at a critical time in Moscow’s unprovoked war.

There was speculation Tuesday of a deadly explosion across the Ukrainian border in eastern Poland as Russian troops fired missiles at Ukraine’s key infrastructure. However, State Department and Pentagon officials said they could not verify anything, only stating that they were examining the incident. According to some media outlets, it was unclear whether the missile was Russian or made in Russia, but SOFREP maintains its stance that this is possibly an accident.

Despite Western countries warning that they were carefully looking into the situation and would determine what happened, Ukrainian officials quickly asserted without providing any evidence that it had been a deliberate attack by Russia, which denied any involvement.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Tuesday that Russia’s conspiracy theory about a Ukrainian missile downing a Polish jet was false. “No one should accept Russian propaganda or disseminate it,” he said. Kuleba referred to the downing of a Malaysian Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine in 2014, which he said should have long been a lesson in avoiding Russian propaganda.

Zelensky, on the other hand, said that the strike in Poland was a “Russian attack on collective security” on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, he described the incident as a “Russian missile attack” and said that Polish citizens were killed by “Russian missile terror.”

On Friday, a Russian fighter jet violated Ukrainian airspace and crashed near the Polish border, killing one person on the ground. In response, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, said the incident was not an accident but a “deliberately planned ‘hello’ from the RF, disguised as a ‘mistake.'”

Because villains are unpunished and politicians engage in the ‘pacification’ of aggressors, evil goes unpunished. The Kremlin regime must be stopped, he added.

Immediately after the incident, some European officials blamed Russian missiles for the damage. Defence Minister Artis Pabriks of Latvia said that the “criminal Russian regime fired missiles at not only Ukrainian civilians but at NATO territory in Poland as well.”

Officials rebutted that the missile was purposefully fired, or even fired by Russian forces, on Wednesday.

According to Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, there are many indications that one of the Ukrainian missiles shot down Russian missiles yesterday, despite the lack of intention on either side.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the airliner’s downing was probably the result of Ukraine’s air defence system defending the country and that an investigation was underway. He said there is no sign that this was a deliberate attack, and Russia is not preparing offensive military operations against NATO.

Western leaders’ recent statements about the downing of a Malaysian jetliner could harm Ukraine’s standing at a critical moment in Vladimir Putin’s deadly war.

In recent months, the Ukrainian military has staged successful counteroffensives in the northeast and south, capturing the key port city of Kherson—one of the earliest Russian war victories that had been under Russian control for much of the war. Losing Kherson was a major embarrassment for Putin, whose military continues to suffer severe losses on the battlefield.

Major propaganda wins are also part of these achievements, not just battlefield victories. Even if some people believe that Russian aggression against Ukraine was the cause of the deadly incident in Poland, the Ukrainian overreaction and dismissal of valid concerns as conspiracy theories could undermine the credibility of continued aid at a time when questions have been raised about its value.

The US House of Representatives has just been seized by Republicans and is joining a veterans’ coalition who have shown support to terminate or reduce assistance to Ukraine.

In a subsequent interview, Zelensky was unwavering in his assurances that “our missile or missile strike was not responsible for the downing of the airliner,” according to the paper.

A NATO officer, in response, told the publication: “This is getting ridiculous. The Ukrainians are destroying [our] confidence in them. Nobody is blaming Ukraine, and they are lying openly. This is more destructive than the missile.”

It’s still early days, but NATO has yet to publicly fight Zelensky on his claims. The military alliance and its allies, including the US and President Joe Biden, have repeatedly backed Ukraine, pledging they would defend “every inch” of its territory from Russia.