Closing summary
It’s almost 9pm in Kyiv and Moscow. Here’s where things stand:
Nato allies met in Brussels to discuss their reactions after a missile fell, on Tuesday, on the Polish village of Przewodów, near the Ukrainian border, killing two people. The incident is the first time that the territory of a Nato country has been struck during the near-nine-month Ukraine war.
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has said there is no evidence to suggest the missile strike on Przewodów was an intentional attack or was launched by Russia. Duda said there were “many indications” that the missile was fired as part of Ukraine’s air defences and “unfortunately fell on Polish territory”. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told the Polish parliament that it was possible the incident was the result of a provocation from the Russian side.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, confirmed that initial analysis suggested the incident was “likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory” against Russian cruise missile attacks. “Let me be clear: this is not Ukraine’s fault,” he added. “Russia bears the ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.”
The US president, Joe Biden, also said the missile was unlikely to have been fired from Russia due to its trajectory. Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the US had not seen anything that contradicted Poland’s preliminary assessment that Tuesday evening’s missile was the result of a Ukrainian air defence missile.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he is convinced that the missile was not Ukrainian. Speaking to reporters, Zelenskiy said he had received reports from the command of Ukraine’s armed forces and air force and “cannot but trust them”.
Ukraine is requesting “immediate access” to the site of the explosion in eastern Poland, a senior Ukrainian defence official said. Oleksiy Danilov said Ukraine wanted a “joint study” of Tuesday’s incident with its partners. Duda said both Poland and the US would have to agree before Ukraine could take part in the investigation.
The Russian defence ministry has claimed that, on Tuesday, it had not targeted anywhere within 35km (22 miles) of the Ukraine-Poland border. In a statement reported by Tass, the ministry said statements about “Russian missiles” falling in Przewodów were “a deliberate provocation with the aim of escalating the situation”. The Russian ministry claimed to have identified the wreckage as a Ukrainian S-300 from photographs.
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has blamed Vladimir Putin’s “cruel and unrelenting” war for destabilising the world economy, while calling for Nato allies to wait for the results of “a full investigation into the circumstances behind missiles falling in Poland yesterday”. The British PM and his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, spoke with Zelenskiy and said in a readout afterwards that “whatever the outcome of that investigation [into the explosion in Poland], Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is squarely to blame for the ongoing violence”.
Former Russian president and hawkish long-term ally of Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, has said that the explosion on Polish territory showed the west was moving closer to another world war. “The incident with the Ukrainian-alleged ‘missile strike’ on a Polish farm proves just one thing: waging a hybrid war against Russia, the west moves closer to world war,” Medvedev wrote on Twitter.
A vital deal allowing Russian and Ukrainian wheat and fertilisers to be exported through the Black Sea is expected to continue, according to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The deal was scheduled to expire on Saturday but Erdoğan said he was confident the deal was going to be renewed for a year, bringing relief to some of the poorest countries in the world.
A draft declaration from G20 leaders said “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine”, and demanded Russia’s “complete and unconditional withdrawal” from its neighbour’s territory. The reference to war is a rejection of Russia’s claim that it is involved in a “special military operation”. But it also said “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”, reflecting the divisions among G20 states over Russia.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it had banned entry to more than 50 Irish politicians as a result of western sanctions over Ukraine. Among those listed include Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, the deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, and the foreign, justice and finance ministers.
Ukrainian investigators have uncovered a claimed “torture room” in Kherson city where dozens of men were allegedly detained, electrocuted, beaten and some of them killed. Police said Russian soldiers took over the juvenile detention centre in around mid-March and turned it into a prison for men who refused to collaborate with them or who were accused of partisan activity.
Britain will have to tackle Russian aggression for years to come, said the MI5 chief, Ken McCallum, in his annual threat update. He added that his agency had blocked more than 100 attempts by the Kremlin to insert suspected spies into the UK since the Salisbury poisonings.
Updated
The head of Poland’s national security bureau, Jacek Siewiera, has tweeted a photo showing President Andrzej Duda meeting with the US central intelligence agency chief William Burns in Warsaw this evening.
Wieczorem Prezydent @AndrzejDuda rozmawiał z szefem CIA Williamem Burnsem, który po wizytach w Ankarze i Kijowie jest w Warszawie. Rozmowa dotyczyła ogólnej sytuacji bezpieczeństwa, pojawił się kontekst ostatnich wydarzeń. Na linii PL-US wiele dziś pracy. pic.twitter.com/QuBCWRtksD
— Jacek Siewiera (@JacekSiewiera) November 16, 2022
