Facts about Russia-Ukraine conflict: Russia identifies exploding projectile in Poland as Ukrainian missile
MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments in the Ukraine crisis:
Russian experts have confirmed from pictures of the wreckage of the projectile falling in Poland that it was a Ukrainian missile, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
The rocket was an anti-aircraft guided missile of the S-300 air defense system of the Ukrainian air forces, the ministry said in a statement.
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Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said in Brussels on Wednesday that the explosion at the Polish village of Przewodow near the border with Ukraine on Tuesday night was likely not an attack by Russia but was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile.
Addressing a press conference in Warsaw following a meeting of his country's National Security Bureau on Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda echoed Stoltenberg's statement on the deadly blast that killed two people.
"We have no proof at this stage that it was a missile launched by Russia. There are many indications that it was an air defense missile that unfortunately fell on Polish territory," Duda said.
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Commenting on a rise of anti-Russia campaign after missile landed in Poland, Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, "We see this mayhem as a deliberate effort made as part of a systematic anti-Russia campaign conducted by the West around Ukraine."
"The Western organisations held 'consultations' which gave rise to a new wave of unsubstantiated accusations, which, however, quickly subsided," the ministry said in a statement, accusing a number of NATO countries and some media of spreading fake and unfounded allegations about Russia "without looking into the situation."
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U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Wednesday there's a possibility for "a political solution" to Russia-Ukraine conflict.
"In terms of probability, the probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they defined, or what they claim as Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon, is not high, militarily," he told a news conference at the Pentagon.
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On Tuesday, the Russian armed forces carried out massive strikes with long-range air and sea-based high-precision weapons against the military command and control system and energy facilities in Ukraine, and all the missiles hit exactly their intended targets, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told a daily briefing on Wednesday.
He said that the strikes were carried out only against targets on Ukrainian territory and at a distance of no closer than 35 km from the Ukrainian-Polish border.
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About 7 million households in Ukraine were left without power after a massive missile attack carried out by Russian forces, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Tuesday, citing Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office.
Tymoshenko said 15 facilities in several regions across Ukraine were damaged by the missile strikes, describing the situation as "critical."
Ukrainian power engineers, together with the experts from the State Service for Emergencies, are carrying out repair work to resume power supply, Tymoshenko said.
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