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[Il Palazzo]

Why not check with google maps before engaging in fanciful numerology, though?

[BurnedToast]

Edit: This was unnecessarily aggressive and I apologize.

[bloop_bleep]

Repeating edit here for visibility. In fact I did check Google Earth, just now. I didn't immediately because we are all only posting rumors and speculation anyway, including you, and it is time consuming to go scrolling along longitude/latitude lines.

Wikipedia precise coordinates for Poland strike: 50°28'28.0"N 23°55'39.0"E

Kyiv airstrip: 50°28'28.0"N 30°23'21.0"E

Lviv, possibly not airstrip but rail station of some sort: 49°48'52.0"N 23°55'39.0"E

Also Bay12 does not really have "internet points."

[King Zultan]

From the sound of it we might never know what side the missile came from and probably nothing will come of it in the end.

[bloop_bleep]

They did say a NATO aircraft tracked the missile. We'll see what the situation is tomorrow.

[King Zultan]

Hadn't hear that part and that certainly changes the out come of this.

[KittyTac]

It's just funny to imagine some guy at an army base mix up when copypasting coordinates.

[Il Palazzo]

In fact I did check Google Earth, just now.

Thanks. That actually looks at least not outside the realm of possibility now.
Although, in fairness, what is being done here is drawing lines across two large cities, in the hopes of finding something that could resemble a target.

[Starver]

Across large cities (edit: spread inconveniently about) in miles and miles of even larger Ukraine.

Proper analysis would require assessing how many other arbitrary city-pairs could match (within city limits) any other abitrary points on arbitrary borders. It's generally true that if you go searching for facts (any convenient ones, amongst many possible) to 'explain' results that you'll come across synchronicities, but this will be limited in the case of "two points in a country contributing to a match just across its border" due to the semi-convex nature of the 'hull' of that country's extent.

And that one of them is Kiev (and a definite military target within it) reduces the arbitrariness factor somewhat, by an amount I wouldn't care to guess and would have to Monte Carlo some theoreticals.

The most worrying extension of the possibility of this ever having happened is that a misdirected Russian missile could have been landing upon Belarus or (though not so sure about this, without scanning the range of possible sources for the error) Mother Russia. And, if the hypothetical operator isn't discovered to have done what they did in time, it could have been equally assumed to have been an attack upon them by us, in a knee-jerk reaction without sufficient forensic analysis.

[TamerVirus]

Seeing news articles now saying that it was a stray Ukrainian missile, according to Poland/Biden/NATO

[Starver]

It's weird, either way. Would be nice to see which Russian S2S missile track provoked the S2A defensive launch that went off in the wrong direction. But probably going to be kept nicely behind layers of OpSec.

(No, I'm not contemplating seriously that it's a 'deliberate mistake'.)

And, despite my wish for a Smiley Face precision 'message', all credit for it not being taken as causus belli on a hair-trigger.

[bloop_bleep]

Aaaaaaagh. NATO said it was a Ukrainian SAM that missed its target. There is a chance they are hiding something to prevent an escalation but I somewhat doubt that personally. Upsetting.

What are the chances, given there were two missiles, it was a Russian cruise missile tailed by a Ukrainian S300?

EDIT: Speaking of which, did they even speak about the second blast? Isn't the crater way too big for just an AA blast?

Air defenses also go forward to intercept, not back. It was near a power station, if the coordinate mixup thing is not convincing. NATO has an incentive to promote this narrative because if it was admitted it was Russia it would be a more difficult decision.

[Lord Shonus]

EDIT: Speaking of which, did they even speak about the second blast? Isn't the crater way too big for just an AA blast?

The missiles for an S-300 carry about as much explosive (60-80 kilos) as a US Air Force Mark 82 500 pound bomb. This is done to give it a large damage radius and thus a better chance of destroying a target.

[bloop_bleep]

Ok ok, Wikipedia says warheads are about 100kg like you said, but according to this that seems to indicate a blast diameter of 3m. But does this seem to match?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is it obvious I want it to not be a Ukrainian SAM...

[EuchreJack]

I'm not worried. Even with the missile belonging to Ukraine, it's caused the world to think more about Russian aggression and what it could mean. I think there will still be an increase in funding to Ukraine.