MINSK, November 21. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that the incident involving a missile that was launched by the Ukrainian military and fell in Poland early last week was an intentional provocation against Minsk and Moscow.

"They got into hot water and are now trying, like sneaky thieves, to have this subject closed. It is no longer discussed even in the West. Well, this is just the beginning. They, both Poles and Ukrainians, regret it was not a Russian missile. They needed a provocation against us, they needed an escalation," Lukashenko said on Monday at a meeting with the head of the Udmurt Republic, Alexander Brechalov, the BelTA news agency reports.

With regard to the incident in Poland, he stressed, no one asks this simple question: "What kind of a crazy missile was that? The Ukrainian military [if they are to be believed] fired it eastward, aiming at Russian missiles flying from the east, but it somehow turned around and flew back in the opposite direction?"

"Why was that alleged attack against a NATO state - and that’s the way the incident was presented at first - timed exactly for the G20 summit? You know, I’m cautious enough not to rush to conclusions, but it looks like collusion all right. But they had miscalculated a little - some people got killed," Lukashenko said. "The leadership of Poland is now obliged to tell the Poles how it happened, why the territory of Poland was hit, who plotted this, why that missile, allegedly fired eastwards, suddenly made a U-turn to fly west, and why it was launched at a moment when there were no Russian missiles in the air."

"Things like that never happen by accident. The main question, to which no one answers and about which the Americans keep quiet, is this: at that very moment, when the Ukrainians were launching the S-300 missile, what targets were they aiming at? At that time there were no missiles in the air. They are silent. And the Americans are silent, they don’t say anything. Because they understand that we control this territory, too. And we see something here," Lukashenko said.

In connection with the situation, he made a positive comment on US President Joe Biden’s reaction: "Well done, Joe Biden. He must be given credit for saying honestly: ‘Sorry, it was not Russian [the missile that fell on the territory of Poland]’."