As I understand it, Ukraine will be able to apply -once- Russia stops invading them, but yeah, in the middle of a war, the rest of Nato might as well attack.
Yes, correct - due to NATO regulations no country which is at war at time of joining can join. This is an article which Putin exploited several times, to keep Georgia and other states which wanted to enter NATO out of it, by crippling their territory and keeping them in a constant conflict.
Having said that, once the war is over it is already clear that Ukraine wants to join. I mean, they've already finished all the required paperwork and sent it to Brussels. More importantly, the Ukraine already has clearly demonstrated that it is able to work with NATO standards, has a modern and capable army, and also clearly oriented towards the West.
So once the war is over, there will be much less excuses for not accepting Ukraine into the NATO. The biggest showstopper is and will be though the possible reaction of Russia, if that should ever happen. I mean even if the Russian army performs like a joke, one thing is also quite clear: all supporters of Ukraine are despite that still very observant and careful not to anger Russia too much right now on their own.
Anyway, the path of Ukraine is clear - the country has been pushed towards the west by Putin, it sees itself now clearly as part of it and there will be no turning back on that.
Coming back to the missiles, which impacted Poland:
* Poland's president Duda officially told, that there is no evidence that these missiles were an intentional attack, or launched by Russia.
* General NATO secretary Stoltenberg thinks that the incident was most likely caused by an Ukrainian air defence system to defend Ukraine's territory. He also stated that this incident is not the Ukraine's fault.
* Also US president Joe Biden is of the same opinion like Duda.
* Volodymyr Zelenskiy is convinced that the missile is not Ukrainian, and wants to take part in a joint study of the incident with Poland.
* Russias defence ministry stated that they have not targeted any locations near the Ukraine-Polish border that day.
So in short: Russia and the rest of the Western world do all agree that this was not a Russian attack/missile. What a strange case of all major war parties having the same opinion about an incident.
Poland’s president and Nato both say missile likely an accident by Ukrainian forces – but Kyiv says ‘it was not our rocket’
www.theguardian.com