The United States and its Western allies clashed with Russia over responsibility for the Poland missile attack at the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, a missile hit a Polish village near the border of Ukraine, killing two people. The same day, dozens of Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other cities, hitting critical infrastructure and knocking out power.

UN political and peacebuilding affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, told the Security Council that the incident was a "frightening reminder of the absolute need to prevent any further escalation."

US blames Russia: 'Needless invasion of Ukraine'

While countries still await a conclusive report on who fired the missile, Poland and NATO attributed the strike to a stray missile fired by Ukrainian air defenses.Nevertheless, they placed the ultimate blame on Moscow for putting Kyiv in a position where it had to defend itself against Russian missile strikes.

"Those innocent people would not have been killed if there had been no Russian war against Ukraine,'' said Poland's UN Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski to the Council.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that even though the facts of the incident remain unclear, it was Russia's "needless invasion of Ukraine" that caused this tragedy.

Russian ambassador blames the West for missile attack

Meanwhile, Russia's UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya accused Ukraine and Poland of trying to provoke a direct conflict between Russia and NATO. Nebenzya said that Russia's "special military operation," as Russia refers to its war in Ukraine, would not have been necessary if the 2014 Minsk agreement had been fulfilled.

He blamed the West for not encouraging Kyiv to strive for peace and instead fueled its "feverish fantasies about the possibility of victory over Russia, for the sake of which the Zelenskyy regime is senselessly throwing tens of thousands of its soldiers into the meat grinder.''

Holding the West accountable, he said that there would have been no military action if the West had not "interfered" and supplied Ukraine with "weapons and ammunition."

Britain's UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward called Russia's attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday an "inhumane assault on civilians across Ukraine."

She strongly disagreed with Nebenzya, pointed to Russia's withdrawal from the city of Kherson and said, "Ukraine will prevail in the face of Russia's aggression."

Thomas-Greenfield also called missile attacks on Ukraine a "deliberate tactic" by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "He seems to have decided that if he can't seize Ukraine by force, he will try to freeze the country into submission," she said.

The UN representatives of China and India again called for an end to the violence.

UN political affairs chief: 'No end in sight'

DiCarlo called the missile attack on Ukraine the "most intense bombardment" since the beginning of Moscow's invasion.  She reiterated that attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law.

She also observed that there is "no end in sight to the war" and warned the world that the "risks of potentially catastrophic spillover remain all too real."

ns/aw (AP, dpa)