Here is the situation as it stands on Wednesday, November 16.
Explosion in Poland
- A missile that hit Poland killing two people was probably a Ukrainian air defence missile and there was no evidence to suggest the incident was an intentional attack by Russia, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said.
- The Russian defence ministry denied the reports, describing them as “a deliberate provocation aimed at escalating the situation”.
- NATO called an emergency meeting to discuss the explosion and possible next steps.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired at least 85 missiles on Tuesday, mostly directed at energy infrastructure, including in the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland.
Missile attacks
- Missiles hit cities including the capital, Kyiv, Lviv and Rivne in the west, Kharkiv in the northeast, Kryvyi Rih and Poltava in the centre, Odesa and Mykolaiv in the south, and Zhytomyr in the north, in what Ukraine said was the heaviest wave of missile attacks in nearly nine months of war.
- More than a dozen Ukrainian regions reported power outages after missiles hit, affecting cities together populated by millions. About half of the Kyiv region lost power.
- Moldova said it is experiencing electricity outages as a result of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine and called on Moscow to stop its attacks, saying, “Every bomb falling on Ukraine is also affecting Moldova and our people.”
Fighting
- Civil servants working for the Russian-installed administration in Nova Kakhovka, the second-largest city in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, left along with thousands of residents because of fighting.
- Russia is now engaged in a defensive operation in Ukraine following its withdrawal from Kherson city, a Western official said, after Zelenskyy promised to reclaim all of Ukraine’s occupied territory.
- Russia and Ukraine have tortured prisoners of war during the conflict in Ukraine, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said, citing examples of mistreatment including beatings, the use of electric shocks and forced nudity.
- The governor of the Belgorod region of southern Russia, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said two people were killed and three wounded by shelling in a town near the border with Ukraine.
- The EU ramped up its support to Ukraine by launching a military assistance mission, where up to 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be trained in different European member states.
Diplomacy
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the wave of Russian attacks on multiple cities across Ukraine with Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba.
- UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is “very concerned” at the reports of the missile explosion in Poland.
- Russia and Ukraine accused one another of extending the war at the G20 talks in Bali, with the two countries setting out their requirements for peace.
- European Union countries should work together in replenishing their military inventories and avoid competing with each other amid continuing arms deliveries to Ukraine, the EU’s top diplomat said.
