Russia denies that they are behind it. – The investigation is ongoing. It was most likely a Russian-made rocket, said Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, at a press conference on Wednesday night. The rocket hit the Polish village of Przewodów at 3.40pm on Tuesday afternoon. The village is located around six kilometers from the border with Ukraine. Around 100 Russian rockets were fired this afternoon at more than 10 Ukrainian cities, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Two of the rockets must have landed in neighboring Poland. The Russian ambassador to Poland has been called in to give a detailed explanation of the incident, it says. The picture is supposed to show the damage after the explosion in the Polish village of Przewodow, after a rocket or rocket debris hit a grain field. The image has been verified as best it can be done by Reuters, who obtained it from a Polish source. Photo: UGC / Reuters Attacks against a number of Ukrainian cities All over Ukraine, the air traffic alert went off on Tuesday afternoon. Ukrainian authorities describe it as a continuous wave of attacks. According to a spokesman for the air force, around 100 Russian rockets were fired at Ukrainian targets in more than 10 cities. The targets must have mainly been facilities for critical infrastructure, such as power stations and the like. + This is supposed to be part of one of the Russian cruise missiles that crashed into a Polish village, near the border with Ukraine. The picture has been posted by the Polish Armed Forces. Russia denies Russian rocket In order to defend itself against the many Russian rockets, a number of air defense missiles were sent up from the Ukrainian side. It was therefore speculated whether it could be a Ukrainian missile that ended up over the border. This is rejected from the Ukrainian side. – Russia is now promoting a conspiracy theory that it was a missile from a Ukrainian air defense system that crashed in Poland. This is not true. Nobody should buy Russian propaganda or reinforce this message, says Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. The Russian Ministry of Defense, for its part, calls the information from Poland a provocation. – Statements by Polish media and officials that Russian rockets should have struck in the area around the village of Przewodów are a deliberate provocation to escalate the situation, the Russian Ministry of Defense says, according to the state-run Russian news agency Tass. The ministry also denies that Russia carried out any attacks near the border between Ukraine and Poland and that the photos from the scene show Russian weapons, writes NTB. NATO and the US alarmed The Polish government has called an emergency meeting of the committee for national security and defense issues. Military preparedness has also been raised. Polish President Andrzej Duda has had talks with both US President Joe Biden and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. He has also spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Stoltenberg and Biden are also said to have been in contact with each other. American intelligence confirms that there has been a rocket strike on the Polish side, according to the AP news agency. At the same time, spokespersons for the White House and the Ministry of Defense say that they currently do not have enough information to confirm what has happened, but that they are in contact with the Polish government to obtain more information. Nato confirms to news that they are also investigating the information from Poland, and that the allies are in close contact. The ambassadors of the NATO countries are already meeting on Wednesday to discuss the situation. – The Secretary-General will lead a crisis meeting with NATO’s ambassadors tomorrow, spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP. Rain of rockets The powerful attacks against Ukraine started a little after 2 pm Norwegian time. “There is an attack on the capital. Two blocks of flats in the Petsjersk district have been hit”. Doctors and first responders are on the scene. Several rockets have been shot down by anti-aircraft batteries,” Mayor Vitalij Klitschko wrote on social media. The district is located directly north of the area where the president’s office is located. There were also rocket attacks in Lviv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya, Kremenchuk, Odesa, Poltava and Zhytomyr. “There are explosions in Lviv,” mayor Andrij Sadovyj announced on social media and asked the city’s residents to stay in shelters. Kharkiv’s mayor Igor Terekhov also confirmed the attacks against the city. Hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a video speech to the G20 meeting in Bali, attacks against several cities in Ukraine are reported. Neighboring countries affected by power cuts Power stations, power lines and heating systems in several parts of the country were affected. This has forced a partial shutdown of the power supply. According to the government, the situation is critical in several places. Over 7 million households will be completely without electricity. In the capital Kyiv, large parts of the city are blacked out. The electricity also disappeared in parts of neighboring Moldova as a result of the Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid. Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu says the rockets and bombs hitting Ukraine also affect them. He asks Russia to stop the destruction NOW. Smoke rises after a Russian rocket attack on a power station in Lviv, Ukraine, November 15, 2022. Photo: STRINGER / Reuters Topping the “record” from October President Volodymyr Zelenskyj in a video update asked Ukrainians to be prepared for even more attacks. – We are working hard. We will restore everything. We will survive, says the president. – Russia is not going to achieve anything with this bombardment, he added. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, around 100 rockets were fired at Ukrainian targets. – The attackers pass with that number from October 10, when they fired 84 rockets, a spokesman for the air force told Ukrainian television. Electricity was also knocked out during the rocket attack on Kyiv. Residents and firefighters stand outside the block of flats in the Petsjersk district that was hit by one of the rockets. Photo: SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP Comes after Zelenskyj’s speech The rain of rockets came just hours after the Ukrainian president gave a video speech to the ongoing G20 meeting in Bali. “Russia responds to Zelensky’s powerful speech at the G20 meeting with another missile attack. Does anyone really believe that the Kremlin wants peace? They want obedience. But in the end, terrorists always lose,” the chief of staff of the administration of the President of Ukraine wrote on Twitter. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed the leaders at the G20 meeting directly. “Russia is attacking peaceful Ukrainian cities with deadly rockets. Apartment blocks and energy supply are attacked. I look forward to a principled reaction to the G20 meeting. Stand on the side of the people, not the war criminals,” writes Kuleba in his English Twitter post. In his video speech to the G20 meeting, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Russia to end the war. – I am convinced that now is the time when the Russian destructive war must and can be stopped. It will save thousands of lives, Zelenskyy said. He added that there are no “excuses for the nuclear blackmail” that the Russian leadership is engaged in. This is supposed to be one of the blocks of flats hit by rockets on Tuesday afternoon. Photo: GLEB GARANICH / Reuters Norway condemns the rocket attacks Several of the participants at the G20 meeting condemn the massive Russian attacks. Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt also does so. – We have recorded the news about the missile strikes in Poland. This is a very serious incident, but much is still unclear. We await further information from the Polish authorities on the matter. – However, Norway strongly condemns Russia’s repeated and illegal attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure. These targeted attacks are unacceptable. It will only lead to more suffering for civilians. Norway will continue our strong support for Ukraine’s fight for freedom, says Huitfeldt to news. The Baltic countries describe the news as very worrying. – Estonia is ready to protect every bit of NATO territory. We are in close contact with our allies, says Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu, according to Reuters. – We stand together with Poland, stresses Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda. – We must assess whether NATO can provide even stronger air defense protection to Poland and parts of Ukraine, says Latvia’s Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala says that today’s powerful attack against Ukraine shows that Russia wants to destroy the country. And if it is true that Russian missiles have hit Poland, there will be an escalation. Slovakia’s Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad says he is very concerned and that Russia’s attacks on the neighboring country must now stop. He fears that Russia’s ruthlessness has gotten out of control. Like Poland, Hungary has called a meeting of its defense council. Chinese President Xi Jinping gives his opening speech at the G20 meeting in Bali. Photo: POOL / Reuters The G20 meeting will condemn the war According to American diplomats, the final declaration from the G20 meeting sets up a condemnation of the war in Ukraine. This was clear before the news from Poland arrived. – I think you will see that most of the G20 members will make it clear that they condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine, that they see Russia’s war in Ukraine as the main source of unimaginable economic and humanitarian suffering in the world, a senior US official told the German news agency DPA. Russia is said to have initially accepted the draft final declaration, even if the country is criticized. The question is whether the Russian envoys will still accept this. But there are small signs that Moscow can no longer rely on support from China. Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron are two of several world leaders who have had meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the side of the official meeting programme. They ask China to press for Russia to end the war in the neighboring country. In his speech to the meeting, Xi Jinping warned against using food and energy as weapons. It was interpreted as a poorly concealed criticism of Russia. At the same time, Xi reiterated Chinese opposition to the West’s sanctions policy. President Vladimir Putin himself is not present in Bali. He canceled last week. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was Russia’s foremost representative until he left on Tuesday evening. Now it is the Russian finance minister who has to face the criticism. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets the international press during the G20 meeting in Bali. President Vladimir Putin chose to stay at home. Photo: AP Asking Russia to pay for war damages At the same time as the Ukraine war dominates the discussions at the G20 meeting, the UN General Assembly last night adopted a resolution stating that Russia “must be held accountable for all violations of international law in or against Ukraine”. Although the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly are not legally binding, unlike the resolutions adopted by the Security Council, they have great symbolic weight. The General Assembly asks Russia to pay “compensation for the damage” that has been caused. And the assembly says a register must be created to document the Russian destruction. Latvia’s UN ambassador Andrejs Pildegovičš said when he presented the draft resolution, which Norway helped to draft, that Russia attacks civilian infrastructure knowingly and willfully. 94 of the UN’s 193 member states voted for the resolution. 73 countries abstained from voting, while 14 countries voted against, among them China, Iran and Cuba in addition to Russia. Follow the development in news’s News Center:
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