November 16, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Polish President Andrzej Duda has said that the missile that hit his country on Tuesday was "probably an accident" from Ukraine's air defenses.

"There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely, it was a Russian-made S-300 rocket. We have no proof at the moment that it was a missile fired by the Russian side," he tweeted Wednesday.

“There is a high chance" that one of the Ukrainian air defense missiles fell on Poland's territory, he said. Two people were killed in the incident.

“Probably it was shot by the Ukrainian Air Defense, and unfortunately, it fell onto Polish territory,” he said.  

“It wasn't a big explosion, but still it was an explosion,” the president added. He reiterated that nothing shows that it was an “intentional attack” against Poland.  

Duda also said that Poland has increased combat readiness of its forces. He also said that he spoke to US President Joe Biden about increasing combat readiness of the US Air Force Base in Poland. 

The missile hitting eastern Poland marked the first time a NATO country had been directly hit during the conflict.

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The power supply in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv has been left in a “complicated” situation, according to officials, following Russia’s missile strikes targeting critical infrastructure on Tuesday.

“The power supply network of Kyiv is united with the national power supply system,” the city's mayor, Vitalii Klitschko, said on Telegram.

The attacks hampered residents' access to electricity in multiple Ukrainian regions, leading to both scheduled and unscheduled and emergency power outages on Wednesday.

A meeting between Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau and the summoned Russian ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreyev, following the landing of a deadly missile on Polish territory lasted "only four minutes," according to a government spokesperson.

“He (Andreyev) was received, but without any exchange of courtesy, without shaking hands, by Minister Zbigniew Rau and the delegation accompanying him. Our diplomatic note was read to the ambassador, which is similar to the communiqué we published. The ambassador accepted the position and left,” Lukasz Jasina, a spokesman for Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said.

Jasna told Polish national radio that the Russian ambassador, who was summoned by Poland on Tuesday after the missile struck eastern Poland, appeared around midnight for the meeting. 

Poland said a "Russian-made" missile hit the country on Tuesday, killing two people. The incident marks the first time a NATO country has been directly hit during the conflict. It is not known who fired the missile, or precisely where it was fired from.

In another interview, Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński said on RMF FM Radio that Foreign Minister Rau demanded Andreyev to explain the situation during the meeting. 

“There is a very high probability that we are dealing with a consequence of Russia's actions," Jabłoński said. 

"These consequences for the first time since the outbreak of the war – this is something that we assumed could happen, but it happened yesterday – affected Poland, Polish territory, Polish citizens died.”  

The explosion that occurred outside the Polish village of Przewodow on Tuesday was likely a result of Ukraine's air defense system intercepting an incoming Russian missile, according to Belgium’s Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder.  

“Based on current information, the strikes in #Poland seem to be a result of Ukrainian air defense,” Dedonder tweeted Wednesday.    

“Pieces of Russian missiles and a Ukrainian interception missile are said to have landed in Poland. To be confirmed by ongoing investigations,” she added.  

French President Emmanuel Macron said the G20 summit has a responsibility to send a “very clear message to avoid escalation” over the deadly missile incident in Poland.

Global leaders have the role to “send a very clear message to avoid escalation … to defend peace and to avoid the division, a partition of the world,” Macron told reporters from the summit in Bali Wednesday.

He added that there was a “space of convergence” among the gathered G20 leaders, including China and India, to push Russia towards de-escalation in Ukraine.

The landing of a missile in eastern Poland on its border with Ukraine on Tuesday killed two people, marking the first time a NATO country has been directly struck during the conflict.

Macron said that he had also spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart President Volodymyr Zelensky and that between 80 and 100 Russian missiles had targeted civilian structures in Ukraine Tuesday during Moscow's latest barrage of deadly strikes.

He added that he hoped China would “play a more significant mediation role in the coming months" in the war in Ukraine, as he announced his intention to visit Beijing “at the start of 2023."

Chinese leader Xi Jinping "very clearly expressed" his wish for de-escalation in Ukraine, according to the French president.

A local official said Ukrainian forces shot down “most” of the 13 missiles Russia fired into the western region of Lviv on Tuesday, as Moscow launched its largest barrage of nationwide strikes in over a month.

“It was a missile attack from long-range aircraft flying from the east. Most of them were shot down by the soldiers of the Air Defense ‘West.’”

Three energy infrastructure facilities were “critically damaged” by the attack, Kozytskyi said, and 700,000 people were left without electricity. An official in the Ukrainian president’s office said Wednesday that energy supply had been 95% restored.

Kozytskyi said that one person was in the hospital in a serious but stable condition.

Russia's shelling earlier this week sapped much of Ukraine's electricity supply, resulting in scheduled and unscheduled emergency power cuts across multiple regions of the country Wednesday.

Two officials briefed on initial US assessments said it appears the missile that killed two people in eastern Poland Wednesday originated in Ukraine, even though it was Russian made.

The official said that assessment is what President Joe Biden appeared to be alluding to in his remarks earlier when he said it was “unlikely” the missile originated in Russia,

The officials said intelligence assessments had been discussed at the emergency meeting called by Biden on the margins of the G20 summit in Bali and would also be a topic of conversation at a meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels.

The joint statement after the G7 meeting was also deliberately ambiguous when it came to the incident, putting far more focus on the dozens of strikes that happened in the hours before the missives crossed into Poland.

A spokesperson with the US National Security Council declined to comment on reports that the Russian-made missile that landed in eastern Poland killing two people was fired by Ukrainian forces trying to intercept a Russian attack.

"We have no comment and will not be confirming this report. As the President said today, we support Poland’s ongoing investigation to figure out exactly what happened," the spokesman said.

Earlier, President Biden said preliminary information suggests it is unlikely the missile that landed in Poland was fired from Russia after consulting with allies at the G20 Summit in Indonesia.

"I don’t want to say that [it was fired from Russia] until we completely investigate," Biden went on. "It’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see."

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the nine-month conflict. CNN has previously reported that Ukraine has used Russian-made missiles as part of their air defense system. These older-generation weapons systems date back to the period when both Russia and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union.

In a statement to CNN on Wednesday, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not explicitly deny reports the missile originated in Ukraine but emphasized Russia’s responsibility for starting the war.

“There is only one logic to be followed,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of the Ukrainian President, said. “The war was started and is being waged by Russia. Russia is massively attacking Ukraine with cruise missiles. Russia has turned the eastern part of the European continent into an unpredictable battlefield. Intent, means of execution, risks, escalation – it is all coming from Russia alone.”

“And there can be no other explanation for any missile incident here. So when an aggressor country launches a deliberate, massive missile strike against a large country on the European continent with its obsolete Soviet-era weapons (Kh -class missiles), tragedy sooner or later occurs on the territories of other states as well.”

Indonesian President Joko Widodo asked for "calm" at the G20 summit in Bali, after a missile struck Poland near its border with Ukraine on Tuesday.

"I regret the incident in Poland. I call all parties to remain calm and refrain from escalating tension," Joko told journalists during a news conference on wrapping up the G20 summit in Indonesia on Wednesday. 

"I always say that war will only bring devastation. Therefore, we must stop the war. And President Biden has already said that the missile is unlikely coming from Russia," Widodo added. 

US President Joe Biden said earlier Wednesday that there was preliminary information that "contests" claims the missile was fired from Russia. 

"I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate," Biden went on. "It’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see.”

Global leaders gathered at the conference attempted to alleviate a potential escalation in the Kremlin's war on Ukraine after Poland said a "Russian-made" missile struck an area outside the rural village of Przewodow and killed two people.

The incident marked the first time a NATO-member has been directly hit during the conflict. It is not known who fired the missile, or exactly where it was launched from.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed reporting.

World leaders, gathered at the G20 summit in Bali, have called for the "full implementation" of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, stressing its importance for maintaining global food security. 

Members said they "welcomed" the UN-brokered grain deal and its efforts to "ease tension and prevent global food insecurity and hunger in developing countries," in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

"We emphasize the importance of their full, timely and continued implementation by all relevant stakeholders, as well as the UN Secretary-General’s calls for continuation of these efforts by the Parties," the leaders stressed in the declaration, published as the summit in Bali, Indonesia, wrapped Wednesday.  

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday cast doubt on the future of the agreement, which was negotiated to allow the safe passage of ships carrying Ukrainian grain and ease a global food crisis inflamed by the war.

The G20 said that it has also taken note of other initiatives to tackle the issue of food insecurity, name-checking the Arab Coordination Group's $10 billion package to address the issue.

US President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan both agreed that the grain deal has been "critical to improving global food security amid Russia’s war," and emphasized the need for its continued implementation at a bilateral meeting on Tuesday.

On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin told Russia state media RIA Novosti that Moscow’s decision on the extension of the grain deal will be made taking into account the implementation of the Russia-UN memorandum on the export of Russian fertilizers and agricultural products.