Journalist fired for writing about 'Russian missile crash in Poland'.

The publication noted that in its November 15 article, the journalist referred to an unnamed senior US intelligence official. Numerous online publications and television news programs quoted the article, "causing widespread alarm around the world."

Photo credit for illustration: Fotolia/Rafael Ben-Ari

The news report was deleted the following day, replaced by an editor's note stating that the source was incorrect and that "subsequent reports indicated that the missile was Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine."

On Monday, the agency fired journalist James Laporta, the author of the original article, according to the Daily Beast. Meanwhile, co-author John Lester remains employed by the agency, the newspaper wrote.

Earlier, Polish President Andrzej Duda declared there was no indication that his country had been intentionally attacked on Tuesday. On November 15, Polish media reported that two rockets had landed in the village of Przewodów, Lublin province, on the border with Ukraine, killing two people. The Polish Foreign Ministry claimed the rockets were of Russian origin. However, this information was not confirmed in the United States, where US President Joe Biden later announced that preliminary information refuted the Russian rocket hypothesis.

According to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense, there was no attack on targets near the Ukraine-Poland border that day, and the photographs of debris bore no resemblance to Russian weapons systems. The photographs published in Poland from the site of the incident in Przewodów clearly show that the debris belonged to a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile system that had fallen there, the Russian Ministry of Defense emphasized.

PV