November 17, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke today with his Ukrainian counterpart, Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, according to a readout of the call provided by his spokesperson.

A man harvests corn in his backyard.

A Ukrainian man harvests corn from his backyard in the cold autumn rain. Next to the broken fence sits a rusting Russian tank, destroyed when Kyiv’s military forced Russian forces to retreat from the west bank of the Dnieper river.??

A Russian tank, destroyed when Kyiv's military forced Russian forces to retreat, sits on the side of the road.

In the absence of Russian soldiers, life is slowly returning to normal in the liberated areas of Kherson province. But even if the frontline has moved, the war remains a constant presence in the village of Dudchany, which sits on the Dnieper’s west bank, with daily shelling a constant threat.?

A white flag marks an unexploded missile.

“Two days ago there was shelling and shrapnel landed right here in our yard,” said Olga Gritsuniak, 68, as she showed the remains of the weaponry. On Thursday, another five Russian rockets landed in her village.??

“Thank God we survived all this,” she said.?

Olga Gritsuniak shows the stores of food in her basement, where she and her husband often took shelter while the Russians occupied the area.

Gritsuniak and her husband often hid in their basement when the Russians occupied the area, not just to escape the Ukrainian counterfire, but also to steer clear of Moscow’s armies.?

Gritsuniak doesn’t have power, gas or water, a concern as winter fast approaches, with temperatures expected to drop below zero in the coming days.?

Lesya Koval

Nearby, Lesya Koval, 59, is felling trees with her husband. Without power or gas, they’ll have to use wood for heating.?She never doubted Ukrainian forces would retake Kherson and wants to forget the time spent under Russian occupation.?

She wishes life would soon return to normal – but a few meters away, the local kindergarten, with its collapsed roof and walls barely standing after persistent shelling, is a reminder that this is very much still an active war zone.???

“Even if Kherson has been liberated… they keep firing at us,” she said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks as Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, and Rep. Thomas Massie listen during a news conference at the US Capitol on Thursday, November 17.

In a preview of the intra-party battle ahead, far-right House Republicans, led by MAGA firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, vowed Thursday to fight against Ukraine aid.

She said, at a news conference with other members, that she’d introduced an effort to force a vote on a resolution requiring the Biden administration?to provide all documents related to the security assistance that has already been appropriated to Ukraine.

The long-shot bid does not have buy-in from members of the Republican leadership, though they were given a heads-up about the news conference.?

The far-right members also seized on House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s previous promise of no more “blank checks” to Ukraine, even though McCarthy later clarified he just wants to ensure greater oversight of any federal dollars.?

“I will not vote for one more dollar to Ukraine,” added Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Some background: While the anti-Ukraine wing of the party only represents a fraction of the GOP, this group could have leverage in a razor-thin majority.

CNN projects that Republicans will win?control of the House?– but their majority will be a narrow one. As of Thursday evening,?CNN projected?Republicans will control 218 seats compared to 210 for the Democrats.?If the current leaders of the remaining uncalled races wind up winning, that would leave Republicans with 221 seats.

A Polish official told CNN on Thursday that his country will move quickly with its investigation into the missile that landed on the Polish village of Przewodow on Tuesday.

Speaking to CNN’s Isa Soares, Polish Ministry for Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lukasz Jasina said that Poland is pushing ahead with its investigation into the incident, adding that the authorities expect to receive the results in the next few days.

Jasina said that Ukrainian experts will also be allowed access to the site, stressing there first needs to be “some legal arrangements to create a good space for their expertise.”

Some background: Earlier today, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Ukrainian investigators will be allowed to observe the investigation, “but when it comes to participation in proceedings and access to documents and information, it requires specific treaty grounds, specific grounds in the field of international law and international agreements.”

Jasina, who told CNN that he comes from the region where the missile exploded, said the mood among his friends and neighbors is “very very sad.”

“Russian threat is direct not only for Ukraine but also for Poland and other European states. That war is against all of us, against our values, against Europe, against our style of life,” he added.

A view of the dark streets after a massive Russian missile strike on critical infrastructure in Lviv, Ukraine, November 15.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country is enduring emergency power cuts Thursday night after more Russian missile attacks, just as temperatures fall to freezing and below.

In his daily video message, Zelensky said crews are doing everything to normalize supply, but there were “emergency power cuts again in addition to the planned stabilization ones.”

“As of now, more than 10 million Ukrainians are without electricity,” he said — the same number as on Tuesday night after a barrage of missile attacks.

Most of the outages are in Vinnytsia, Odesa, Sumy and Kyiv regions, the president said.

Yasno, a power supplier in Kyiv, said the city had experienced emergency blackouts all day, with the grid having less than half of its normal supply. It said power engineers were trying to stabilize the system to avoid even greater damage.?

Zelensky said that dozens of people were wounded as a result of a missile strike in Dnipro. In Zaporizhzhia, seven bodies had been recovered from the debris of a residential building destroyed by Russian shelling on Wednesday night, he said.

Zelensky also welcomed the renewal for four months of the Black Sea grain export accord and the verdict at the MH17 trial in the Netherlands.

US basketball player Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony in August for drug smuggling, is seen on a screen via a video link from a remand prison during a court hearing to consider an appeal against her sentence, at the Moscow regional court on October 25.

US basketball star Brittney Griner has been moved to a penal colony in Russia’s Mordovia region, her legal team told CNN in a statement Thursday.

“We can confirm that Brittney began serving her sentence at IK-2 in Mordovia. We visited her early this week. Brittney is doing as well as could be expected and trying to stay strong as she adapts to a new environment,” Griner’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, told CNN on Thursday.

Griner’s lawyers said they would like to “thank everyone who has expressed care for her,” and that they have received “numerous messages of support.”

They added that “considering that this is a very challenging period for her,” there will be no further comment from them.

The US State Department said that Griner’s location has still not been shared with them by the Russian government.?

“We are aware of reports of her location, and in frequent contact with Ms. Griner’s legal team,” a State Department spokesperson said Thursday.

Griner’s agent, Lindsay Colas, also told CNN that the Russian legal team has seen the WNBA star at the penal colony, where she has begun serving her 9-year sentence.

“Despite the fact she is alone and now nearing her ninth month in detention separated from her loved ones, she is trying to stay strong. At this time, we will not be sharing any further details, but want to express our deepest thanks to the Biden Administration, the Richardson Center, and to everyone who has reached out to offer words of encouragement to her,” Colas said.

Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport shortly before the war began and accused by Russian prosecutors of trying to smuggle?less than 1 gram?of cannabis oil in her luggage.

The Russian region of Mordovia, which is more than 300 miles from Moscow, is the same region where American Paul Whelan is being held. The former US Marine is serving 16 years in a different penal colony on espionage charges that he denies.

What is life like in a penal colony? While the conditions vary greatly in different Russian penal colonies, there are reports of political prisoners being placed in harsh conditions. Prisoners can be subjected to “solitary confinement or punitive stays in psychiatric units,” the State Department’s human rights report says.

Russian law also allows for forced labor in penal colonies, and in some cases, inmates have been tortured to death, the report says. There are also reports of prison authorities recruiting inmates to abuse other inmates, the report adds.

There is “no indication” that Poland is dealing with a direct threat, Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller told reporters in Warsaw on Thursday, following Tuesday’s incident that left two people dead when a missile landed in the Polish village of Przewodow.

Based on the materials that have been collected by expert teams, “the reason for this event were Ukraine’s defensive actions against Russia’s offensive actions. There is no indication that we are dealing with a direct threat to our country,” he added. “At the moment, we know that on Nov. 15, Russia, which carried out a massive missile attack on the territory of Ukraine, led to a situation in which the Ukrainian anti-aircraft forces had to take defensive measures.”

Ukrainian officials said on Thursday that their investigators were getting access to the site of the blast.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said earlier today that Ukrainian investigators will be allowed to observe the investigation, “but when it comes to participation in proceedings and access to documents and information, it requires specific treaty grounds, specific grounds in the field of international law and international agreements.”

The UN-brokered deal that allows Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports during the war will be extended for 120 days in the same format, according to a news release from the Russian Foreign Ministry published on Thursday.

“No such objections have been received,” it added.

According to the ministry, Moscow “has clearly and openly emphasised that the agreements on Ukrainian food and the effective implementation of the Russian-UN Memorandum on the normalisation of Russian agricultural exports is a package deal, and that remains unchanged.”

“We took note of the intensification of the UN Secretariat’s effort to fulfill its obligations in this regard and the information provided to us on the intermediate results of its work to remove obstacles to Russian fertiliser and food exports. All these issues must be resolved within 120 days, the period for which the package deal is to be extended,” the ministry said.

The ministry added that “any attempt to use the humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea for military provocations will receive a harsh response.”

Some context:?Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday?cast doubt?on the future of?the agreement, saying it depended on?existing terms being met. Earlier this month, Russia rejoined the deal after saying it was pulling out.

Ukraine and Russia together account for?nearly a third?of global wheat exports, and the grain deal has played a crucial role in lowering the price of wheat and other commodities globally.

Russia says it will not extradite its citizens who were sentenced in absentia by a Dutch court to life imprisonment, Russian state media TASS reported on Thursday.

This comes after a Dutch court sentenced three men — former Russian intelligence officers Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader — to life imprisonment after they were convicted for their roles in the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which killed all 298 people onboard.

The men all refused to take part in the trial and were tried in absentia, meaning it is highly unlikely they will serve those sentences.

Russian forces have carried out rocket and artillery attacks along the front lines in seven different regions — from Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south to Luhansk and Kharkiv in the northeast, the Ukrainian military said. The military added that these attacks are separate from the spate of Russian cruise missile attacks on Thursday against infrastructure.

There have been 25 missile strikes, and civilian infrastructure was hit in six regions, the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said, adding that 23 people were injured in missile strikes in Dnipro and several people were killed in Zaporizhzhia.

Some of the shelling in the northeastern corner of Kharkiv appears to have come from Russian territory.?

In Donetsk and Luhansk regions, there was also heavy shelling in several areas — both where Ukrainian forces are on the attack around Svatove and where Russian units have been trying to break through around Bakhmut. In occupied Luhansk, it said, the movement of civilians had been restricted.?

The General Staff did not indicate any territory had been won or lost.?

Thursday saw some big developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict — including a spate of Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, a Dutch court’s verdict in the MH17 case and an extension for the Black Sea grain deal. If you’re just joining us, catch up on the latest here.

The Ukrainian government said communications are being brought back up after the recent spate of missile attacks from Russia.?

Many Ukrainian cities are again without electricity and have communication disruptions as base stations have lost power, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said in a Telegram post.

But he added, “in just one day, thanks to the efforts of power engineers and mobile operators, 3,000 base stations resumed their work. Thus, residents of Kharkiv and Zhytomyr regions are back in touch.”

The status of communication and power services across the country varied, Fedorov said. In the Odesa region, only 38% of networks were working. But in other regions, more than two-thirds of networks were back up, with 77% in the Kyiv region and 81% in the Lviv region.

The destroyed Antonivskyi bridge and the east and west banks of the?Dnipro?river, outside Kherson, Ukraine, on November 15.

Russian forces continue to equip “defensive borders” on the east bank of the Dnipro River, as well as regrouping their units, the Ukrainian military said.

Russia “continues to provide logistical support to units in the Kherson region, looking for safe ways to supply equipment, weapons and supplies,” Ukraine’s Operational Command South said.?

Russian forces withdrew to the east bank last week, but Ukrainian shelling of the area has continued.?

The Ukrainian military’s General Staff echoed the Operational Command South’s comments, saying Russian troops continue the forced evacuation of Ukrainians from the occupied areas of the Kherson region.

On Wednesday night, the population from Novokyivka, a village not far from Crimea, had been forced to leave their homes, and the hospital in Nova Kakhovka stopped functioning because all medical equipment and ambulances were stolen, according to the General Staff.

Brigadier Gen. Oleksii Hromov, deputy chief of the General Staff, said that the presence of Ukrainian troops on the west bank of the Dnipro River “allows us to control the territory close to the temporarily occupied peninsula of Crimea.” Ukrainian artillery was “doing their best to hit” Russia “at the maximum range of our weapons,” he added.?

Russian shelling continued against communities further north, across the river, including Myrivka, Marhanets and Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region, it said.

In the Black Sea, the command said Russia “has increased the number of cruise missile carriers in the Black Sea naval grouping. Currently, there are 3 of them, one of which is underwater. They are ready for a salvo by two dozen?Kalibr missiles.”

Victims' relatives embrace amid the trial of the MH17 downing case on November 17.

The families of the victims of the MH17 tragedy were awarded damages exceeding $16.5 million by a Dutch court on Thursday.??

After assessing the 306 claims for compensation, according to Ukrainian law, “compensation for moral damages, including emotional damages” was “granted for a total amount exceeding 16 million euros ($16.5million),” a press release from the Hague District Court said.?

The press release noted that although under Ukrainian law, same-sex partners are not entitled to claim compensation, the court decided not to apply that exclusion as it would “violate the prohibition on discrimination.”?

The three accused, Leonid Kharchenko, Sergey Dubinskiy and Igor Girkin, were all sentenced to life imprisonment after the court ruled that downing Flight MH17 bore such “devastating consequences” that “a limited period of imprisonment will not suffice,” according to the press release.

Polish President Andrzej Duda speaks to media on November 17, in the eastern village of Przewodow, Poland, where a missile strike killed two men, near the border with Ukraine.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that he is trying to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following what he called an “unintentional incident” that left two people dead on Tuesday when a missile landed in the Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine.

Duda said that all three parties – Poland, Ukraine and the US – are collecting information on their end, reinstating that what happened on Tuesday was a “tragic” accident.

“Nobody wanted to hurt anyone in Poland,” Duda said, adding that “so far, we haven’t found any traces of the second missile on Polish territory.”

“This is a difficult time for this small community,” he said, and “the families ask that their pain and privacy be respected.”

Three individuals were found guilty by Dutch juries of murder for their part in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 and were given life sentences on November 17, in Badhoevedorp, Netherlands.?

A?Dutch court’s Thursday verdict, which found two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist guilty of mass murder for their role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, marked “an important day for justice and accountability,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.?

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also welcomed the?verdict, saying the decision “is an important moment in ongoing efforts to deliver justice” for the victims.

Blinken added that “more work lies ahead to meet the UN Security Council’s demand in resolution 2166 that ‘those responsible … be held to account.’”

Earlier, the court stated that “the consequences [of their actions] are so severe and the attitude of the accused is so detestable that a mere time-prescribed sentence would not suffice.”

The men all refused to take part in the trial and were tried in absentia, meaning it is highly unlikely they will serve those sentences.

The Russian military hit a Ukrainian command post and communications center in a recently liberated part of the Kherson region, the?Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said that Russia’s aviation, missile forces and artillery had been in action and had hit “the command post of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement?Naddnipryanske?and the communications center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement Chernobaevka” in the Kherson region.

Both places are close to the city of Kherson, on the west bank of the Dnipro River, and were taken back by Ukrainian forces last week.

The defense ministry said 74 artillery units had been hit.

In Zaporizhzhia — also in southern Ukraine — Russian forces destroyed the workshops of the Iskra research and production complex, which produced electronic components for the repair of radar stations and multiple launch rocket systems, the ministry added.

A source in the president’s office in Kyiv has confirmed to CNN that Ukrainian investigators have arrived at the site in Poland struck by a missile on Tuesday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded Wednesday that a Ukrainian team should be allowed to join the investigation, which is being led by Polish and US experts.

Lawyers attend the judges' inspection of the reconstruction of the MH17 wreckage on May 26, 2021 in Reijen, Netherlands.

The conviction of three Russians and a separatist Ukrainian in the shooting down of flight MH17 in summer 2014 is an important step but not a final conclusion, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said following the verdict.?

A Dutch judge found the three men guilty of mass murder in the downing of the plane, which killed all 298 people onboard, mainly of them Dutch nationals.

He warned that all parties have the right to appeal. “But to reiterate, an important step has been taken today, and hopefully it will feel that way to the victim’s next of kin too,” he added.

The site where a missile strike killed two men in the eastern Poland village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine, November 17.

Ukrainian specialists will join the work of the joint international investigative commission at the site in Poland struck by a missile on Tuesday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“I don’t know what happened. We don’t know for sure. The world does not know. But I am sure that it was a Russian missile, I am sure that we fired from air defense systems,” Zelensky said.

Only after the investigation would it be possible to draw conclusions about which missile fell on the territory of Poland, he said.?

Separately, a source in the president’s office confirmed to CNN that a Ukrainian team is being allowed access to the site in Poland where Polish and US investigators are working.

The court under the direction of President Steenhuis, second left, waits prior to verdict in the trial of four men prosecuted for their involvement in the MH17 downing case on November 17.

A Dutch court has sentenced two Russian nationals and one Ukrainian separatist to life imprisonment after they were convicted for their roles in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which killed all 298 people onboard.

The court found that “only the highest appropriate prison sentence would be appropriate” for former Russian intelligence officers Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian separatist leader Leonid Kharchenko.

The court stated that “the consequences [of their actions] are so severe and the attitude of the accused is so detestable that a mere time-prescribed sentence would not suffice.”

The men all refused to take part in the trial and were tried in absentia, meaning it is highly unlikely they will serve those sentences.

A Dutch court has convicted two Russians and one Ukrainian separatist of murder for their roles in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.

Russian nationals Igor Girkin, a former colonel of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and Sergey Dubinskiy, who was employed by Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU, were convicted along with Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko, who had no military background but is believed to have led a combat unit in Donetsk in July 2014.

A fourth suspect, Russian national Oleg Pulatov, a former soldier of the Russian special forces Spetsnaz-GRU, was acquitted.

The plane was flying over a region at the epicenter of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces – the precursor to the current war.

The men refused to attend the trial and were tried in absentia at Schiphol Judicial Complex in Badhoevedorp, the Netherlands.?

Hendrik Steenhuis, the presiding judge, cited the wealth of evidence for the court’s decision and ruled out any alternative explanations for the incident.

The court found that a Russian Buk missile was used to bring down?the plane and that Moscow was in control of the separatists at the time of the attack.

The court found that the missile launch was carried out deliberately, citing the fact that firing a Buk missile involves a complex process, but believed that the operators likely thought they were targeting a military aircraft rather than a passenger jet.

Steenhuis said those operating the Buk system would have been aware of the destructive power of the missile and the consequences of the attack would have been “crystal clear,” namely the downing of any aircraft and the death of all of those on board.

The evidence reviewed by the court included including fragments of a Buk missile found embedded in the aircraft and the bodies of some of the victims, along with videos and images showing a Buk system being moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia and then back into Russian territory following the downing of the plane.

Read CNN’s full report here.

?Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine will continue regardless of weather conditions, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists Thursday, as snow and cold temperatures hit the country.

Asked about millions of people left without electricity after massive strikes on Ukraine this week as temperatures are expected to drop further in the country, Peskov said: “The special military operation continues and its continuation does not depend on climatic, weather conditions.”

According to Peskov, Kyiv authorities are not willing to negotiate anymore. And if they are, they want “public” negotiations, which Moscow does not see happening.?

Pressed further on why millions of civilians are suffering without electricity and heat, Peskov referred to “unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to solve problems, to enter into negotiations.”?

Some context: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly said over the months of war that Ukraine was willing to engage in diplomatic talks with the Russians. But he?signed a decree in early October ruling out any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That decree came in response to Russia’s self-declared annexation of territories in eastern Ukraine following sham referendums there.

Authorities in the Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk say 23 people were injured in Russian missile attacks earlier Thursday, and 15 are hospitalized.

An industrial enterprise, houses, trolleybuses and a busy street were damaged, said Valentyn Reznichenko, head of Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.

Missiles struck “when people were already on the streets. They were going to work, going about their business. Just living their usual lives,” he added.

U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken press conference during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand, on November 17.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the United States is “sharing the information that we have” with Ukraine, adding that all partners – the US, NATO, Poland, and Ukraine – have “a commitment to follow the facts” regarding the deadly incident in eastern Poland.

“We’ve been in regular contact with our Ukrainian partners,” Blinken said at a press conference in Bangkok. “We’re sharing the information that we have.”

Blinken reiterated that the investigation is ongoing but the US has “seen nothing so far that contradicts President Duda’s preliminary assessment that that this was likely the result of Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in in Poland.”

Despite the Polish and NATO initial assessments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had publicly argued on Tuesday and early Wednesday that the missile was not Ukrainian.

In his Wednesday night address, he said, “The Ukrainian position is very transparent: we want to establish all the details, every fact. That is why we need our experts to join the work of the international investigation and to get access to all the data available to our partners and to the site of the explosion.”

Blinken said Thursday that Zelensky “has been in touch with the Polish president himself to clarify the facts.”

“The chair of Ukraine’s national security and defense council said that Ukraine is pursuing a comprehensive analysis of what happened,” the top US diplomat said.

The US is running low on some high-end weapons systems and ammunition available to transfer to Ukraine, three US officials with direct knowledge tell CNN.

The strain on weapons stockpiles – and the ability of the US industrial base to keep up with demand – is one of the key challenges facing the Biden administration as the US continues to send billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine to support its fight against Russia. One of the officials said the stockpiles of certain systems are “dwindling” after nearly nine months of sending supplies to Kyiv during the high-intensity war, as there’s “finite amount” of excess stocks which the US has available to send.

Among the weapons systems where there’s particular concern about US stockpiles meeting Ukrainian demands are 155mm artillery ammunition and Stinger anti-aircraft shoulder-fired missiles, the sources said.

Some sources also raised concerns about US production of additional weapons systems, including HARMs anti-radiation missiles, GMLRS surface-to-surface missiles and the portable Javelin anti-tank missiles – although the US has moved to ramp up production for those and other systems.

For the first time in two decades, the US is not directly involved in a conflict after withdrawing from Afghanistan and transitioning to an advisory role in Iraq. Without the need to produce weapons and ammunition for a war, the US has not manufactured the quantities of material needed to sustain an enduring, high-intensity conflict.

Multiple officials underscored that the US would never put at risk its own readiness, and every shipment is measured against its impact on US strategic reserves and war plans.

In newly liberated parts of the Kherson region, Ukrainian war crimes investigators have found 11 detention centers and evidence of “torture” used in four of them, said Ukraine’s internal affairs minister Wednesday evening.?

“Eleven places of detention have been discovered, of which torture was used in four places,” Denys Monastyrskyi?told Ukrainian TV.

After Russian forces?retreated across the Dnipro river last week, Ukrainian forces reclaimed much of the Kherson region, including the regional capital.

The police and Ukrainian security services were working to gather evidence, “recording every fact of torture, finding witnesses, as well as exhuming the bodies of the dead,” Monastyrskyi said.?

While he did not specify locations, he said 63 bodies had been found so far.

CNN cannot independently verify Monastyrskyi’s claims.

Russia has?previously denied?allegations of war crimes and claimed its forces do not target civilians,?despite extensive evidence?gathered by international human rights experts, criminal investigators and international media in multiple locations.?

On Tuesday, Alexander Malkevich, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, an advisory body largely packed with pro-government loyalists, said that Kyiv was planning to accuse the Russian military of crimes in Kherson, in an interview on Russian state-owned Sputnik radio.

As Russia launches more missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, one of the country’s electricity suppliers says the situation is “very difficult” but under control.

The CEO of DTEK, Dmytro Sakharuk, told Ukrainian television that “on average in the country, about 40% of consumers are left without electricity as of now.”

DTEK?Group is a leading private investor in Ukraine’s energy sector.

Sakharuk said the “Russians have caused very serious damage to transmission facilities — these are substations that transmit electricity from one district to another, through which many regions in the center and west are supplied.”?

He said one of the company’s thermal power plants had been hit, and the damage had shut it down.

He warned about the prospect for days-long power outages.

“Now we must be prepared for the fact that there may be no electricity for days,” he said. “Now we are going to talk not about scheduled power outages, but about scheduled power supply. And, unfortunately, the number of hours during which these power supplies will be turned on will be very short, 2-3 hours maximum.”

Sakharuk’s comments came as temperatures dropped across Ukraine, and Kyiv saw its first snowfall of the winter.?

Four KH-101 cruise missiles and five Iranian-made drones were shot down amid a wave of missile attacks by Russia on Thursday, the Ukrainian Air Force says.

The targets included an enterprise in Dnipropetrovsk region and a gas production facility, it noted. The Kremlin has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure in the last several weeks.

The four cruise missiles brought down were destroyed by Air Command “Center” and all five Iranian-made Shahed UAVs that attacked Ukraine from the territory of Belarus were destroyed in the central region, it added.

In the south, the Air Force said, air defenses destroyed two Kh-59 guided missiles.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian air defenses have destroyed about two-thirds of incoming missiles, and a higher proportion of Iranian drones.

A Dutch court said Moscow had control of the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine when Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.

Hendrik Steenhuis, the presiding judge, is reading the coutr’s verdict in the trial of three Russians and one Ukrainian separatist who are accused of mass murder for their roles in the downing of the jet.

The court also found that a Russian-made Buk missile was used to bring down MH17.

Presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis, fourth from right, speaks during the verdict session of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 trial at the high security court at Schiphol airport, Netherlands, on November 17.

A Dutch court has found that a Russian-made Buk missile was used to bring down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.

A judge at the court is reading its verdict in the trial of three Russians and one Ukrainian separatist who are accused of mass murder for their roles in the downing of the jet.

Several gas production facilities in eastern Ukraine were destroyed and others damaged after “massive shelling” on Thursday, according to Ukraine’s state-owned energy firm Naftogaz.

“We are currently aware of several destroyed facilities, other ones have suffered damage of varying degrees,” said Naftogaz chairman Oleksii Chernyshov in a statement.

Experts were on site to assess the consequences of the attack, he added.

Some context: Russian shelling and missile strikes continued to target civilian infrastructure in various parts of Ukraine overnight, including gas and electricity facilities, according to Ukrainian officials.

Air raid sirens sounded across the country, with strikes reported in the city of Dnipro, in central Ukraine; Izium, in the northern Kharkiv region; Vilniansk in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region; and the southern Odesa region.

Aftermath of a Russian missile strike on Vilniansk in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia on November 17.

A Russian missile strike on Vilniansk in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region killed at least four people overnight, Oleksandr Starukh, head of the regional administration, said on Telegram.

Starukh said three missiles had hit Vilniansk, sharing photos of a residential building which had been destroyed.?

“Currently, four victims have been found under the rubble. Their identities are being established,” he said.

Pictures posted by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service showed dozens of rescuers working at the scene.

Some context: Russian shelling and missile strikes continued to target civilian infrastructure in various parts of Ukraine overnight, including gas and electricity facilities, according to Ukrainian officials.

Air raid sirens sounded across the country, with strikes reported in the city of Dnipro, in central Ukraine; Izium, in the northern Kharkiv region; and the southern Odesa region.

Russia’s renewed barrage comes after Moscow’s forces fired around 100 missiles on at least a dozen cities and districts Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials and a CNN analysis of the strikes.

The attacks appeared to be the largest since October 10, when Russia stepped up its campaign to destroy electricity, water and gas infrastructure across Ukraine.?

A crew member prepares a grain analysis for a control made by members of the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) onboard the Barbados-flagged ship "Nord Vind" coming from Ukraine loaded with grain and anchored in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 11.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was among a number of world leaders that welcomed an agreement to extend the Black Sea grain deal on Thursday, after Moscow had threatened to pull out sparking concerns for global food supplies.

European Council President Charles Michel?said the agreement was “good news for a world that badly needs access to grain and fertilisers.”

The grain deal was brokered in July by the United Nations and Turkey to allow Ukraine to resume the export of grain and other agricultural products after Russia began a full-scale assault on the country in February. It was due to expire on November 19.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan?said on Twitter that the agreement on the extension had been reached after Turkey hosted discussions between the UN, Russia and Ukraine.

Erdogan said that more than 11 million tonnes of grain and other products had been shipped from Ukrainian ports so far under the deal.

The 120-day extension is less than the year-long extension?Ukraine says it asked for.

Polish soldiers pass by the police check point, next to site where a missile strike killed two men, in Przewodow, Poland, on November 17.

All of the evidence collected by?NATO, the United States and Poland indicates that a missile which killed two people in Poland was fired by Ukrainian forces, according to a Polish official.

The evidence “indicates that we are dealing with an S-300 missile launched by Ukrainian air defenses,” said Jacek Severa, the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau, in an interview with Polish?RMF FM?radio on Thursday.

Two farmers died Tuesday when a missile landed outside the rural eastern Polish village of Przewodow, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) west of the Ukrainian border.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted the missile was not Ukrainian, and said that Ukrainian experts must be allowed?access to the site of the explosion and review all data available to its allies.?

When asked why Zelensky denies it was a Ukrainian missile, Severa replied: “President Zelensky represents a country that is at war. The war that had the hardest time in terms of attacks and the use of air assault.”

“It is normal that under such conditions certain hypotheses that seem obvious from the point of view of the defense of the state also seem obvious to the head of that state,” he added.

A part of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 at the crash site in the village of Hrabove, some 80km east of Donetsk, Ukraine, on August 2, 2014

Three Russians and a Ukrainian accused of mass murder and tried in absentia for their alleged involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are set to receive their verdict from a Dutch court Thursday.?

The Boeing 777 was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, when it was shot out of the sky over territory held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

All 298 people on board were killed in the incident, including 15 crew members and 283 passengers from 17 countries.??

The downing of MH17 happened in the early phase of a conflict between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian forces.

An international investigation found that the plane was hit by a Russian Buk missile fired from a village in eastern Ukraine that was held at the time by pro-Russian rebels.

Prosecutors say the launcher belonged to Russia’s 53rd?anti-aircraft missile brigade and was returned to Russian territory the day after the strike.?Moscow has repeatedly denied any responsibility for the incident.

The trial marks the first time that independent judgement will be made on the 2014 incident.?

Three Russians, Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov, were named as suspects, along with Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko.

According to investigators, Girkin is a former colonel of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Dubinskiy was employed by Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU and Pulatov was a former soldier of the Russian special forces, Spetsnaz-GRU.

Ukraine’s Kharchenko had no military background, but is believed to have led a combat unit in Donetsk in July 2014.

While the suspects are not accused of firing the missile at MH17, they are “just as punishable as the person who committed the crime,” according to Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke.

The men were tried in absentia at Schiphol Judicial Complex in Badhoevedorp, the Netherlands, and are unlikely to serve time if convicted.

Pulatov was the only suspect to be represented by lawyers and has maintained his innocence throughout.?

Prosecutors have demanded life sentences for the suspects on charges of murder and causing an aircraft to crash. They have presented thousands of pages of evidence to support their case.?

Aerial showing the site where a missile strike killed two men in the eastern Poland village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine, November 17.

Ukraine is likely to be granted access to the site in Przewodow, Poland, near the Ukrainian border, where a missile killed two people on Tuesday, according to a Polish official.

“A Polish-American investigating team is working at the site of the rocket’s impact,” Jakub Kumoch, top foreign policy advisor to Polish President Andrzej?Duda, told Polish broadcaster TVN 24 in an interview on Thursday. If Poland and the United States agree, then the Ukrainians may soon receive access, he said.

The leaders of Poland and NATO have said the missile was likely fired by Ukrainian air defense forces attempting to thwart a barrage of Russian strikes, but that Moscow bore “ultimate responsibility” for having started the war.?

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has insisted the missile was not Ukrainian, said that Ukrainian experts must be allowed?access to the site of the explosion and review all data available to its allies.?

“The?Ukrainian position is very transparent:?we?want?to?establish?all?the?details, every fact. That is why?we need our experts?to?join?the?work of?the?international investigation and?to?get access?to?all?the?data available?to?our partners and?to?the?site of?the?explosion,” Zelensky said in his daily video address.

An inspection delegation boards the Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn from Ukraine, off the coast of Istanbul on August 3.

UN Secretary-General?Antonio Guterres on Thursday confirmed all parties had agreed to extend the UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal aimed at easing a global food crisis after Russia had cast doubt on its continued participation in the agreement.

The deal, signed in July, had been due to expire on Saturday.

In a tweet, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the deal would be “prolonged for 120 days.”

Some context: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday?cast doubt?on the future of?the agreement, saying it depended on?existing terms being met. Earlier this month, Russia rejoined the deal after saying it was pulling out.

Ukraine and Russia together account for?nearly a third?of global wheat exports and the grain deal has played a crucial role in lowering the price of wheat and other commodities globally.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers his outlook on the opening ceremony of the G20 Leaders' Summit in Bali, Indonesia, on November 15.

When world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, issued a joint statement condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine, a familiar sentence stood out from the 1,186-page document.

“Today’s era must not be of war,” it said, echoing what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian leader Vladimir Putin during a?face-to-face meeting?in September.

Media and officials in the country of 1.3 billion were quick to claim the inclusion as a sign that the world’s largest democracy had played a vital role in bridging differences between an increasingly isolated Russia, and the United States and its allies.

“How India united G20 on PM Modi’s idea of peace,” ran a?headline?in the Times of India, the country’s largest English-language paper.

The declaration came as Indonesian President Joko Widodo handed over the G20 presidency to Modi, who will host the next leaders’ summit in the Indian capital New Delhi in September 2023 — about six months before he is expected to head to the polls in a general election and contest the country’s top seat for a third time.

As New Delhi deftly balances its ties to Russia and the West, Modi, analysts say, is emerging as a leader who has been courted by all sides, winning him support at home, while cementing India as a international power broker.

“The domestic narrative is that the G20 summit is being used as a big banner in Modi’s election campaign to show he’s a great global statesmen,” said Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at New Delhi-based think tank Center for Policy Research. “And the current Indian leadership now sees themselves as a powerful country seated at the high table.”

Read the full analysis here.

Russian shelling and missile strikes continued to target civilian infrastructure overnight, including gas and electricity facilities, according to Ukrainian officials.

Five people were wounded after Russia shelled the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday morning, Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said on Telegram, citing preliminary information.

“Among them, there is a 15-year-old girl. Everyone is in the hospital in moderate condition,” Reznichenko said, adding that two residential districts had been hit, and an “industrial enterprise” was now on fire.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told the Kyiv International Economic Forum on Thursday that “missiles are flying over Ukraine.”

“They are trying to hit our gas production facilities, Pivdenmash [a machine-building plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro] and some other facilities,” said Shmyhal.

And Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of the Office of the Ukrainian President said there had been “several hits to two infrastructure objects” in Dnipro in a post?on Telegram.

Another three men were hospitalized after being wounded in missile strikes that hit “critical infrastructure” in Izium, in the Kharkiv region, on Thursday morning, said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the region, on Telegram.

The southern region of Odesa was also hit by Russian strikes on Thursday, according to Maksym Marchenko, the head of Odesa’s regional administration, who said that there had been “a missile attack on a regional infrastructure facility” in a Telegram post.

Some context: Russia’s renewed targeting of civilian infrastructure comes after Moscow’s forces fired around 100 missiles on at least a dozen cities and districts Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials and a CNN analysis of the strikes. The attacks appeared to be the largest since Oct. 10, when Russia stepped up its campaign to destroy electricity, water and gas infrastructure across Ukraine.?

President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that a Ukrainian missile was not responsible for a deadly explosion in Poland on Tuesday.

Two farmers died Tuesday when a missile landed outside the rural eastern Polish village of Przewodow, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) west from the Ukrainian border.

Polish officials have indicated that it is likely a Ukrainian missile, deployed by its air defenses amid waves of Russian missile attacks Tuesday, fell inside Polish territory.

Zelensky’s comments: Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Zelensky said he did not believe the missile was Ukrainian.

Later, in his daily video address, Zelensky said “clarification of all the circumstances of how Russian aggression crossed the Polish border” was now an issue before the UN Security Council. He said he had spoken with Polish President Andrzej?Duda and expressed his condolences but insisted it was “Russian aggression” that had claimed the lives of two Polish citizens.

Krzysztof?Szczerski?addresses a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York City on April 19.

Poland’s Ambassador to the United Nations says the country acted with “full restraint” after a suspected Russian-made missile fell inside its border on Tuesday, killing two residents and sparking fears of an escalation in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Speaking at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Krzysztof Szczerski said Poland immediately launched an “extensive multiphase investigation” into the missile, which Poland and NATO said was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending their country against a barrage of Russian strikes.

Two farmers died when the missile caused an explosion outside the rural eastern Polish village of Przewodow, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) west from the Ukrainian border.

Szczerski said initial findings support the theory the event was not a deliberate attack. “But naturally, we need to wait for the final conclusion until the investigation is over,” he said.

Some context: Tuesday’s incident marks the first time a NATO country has been directly hit during the nearly nine-month conflict and prompted an emergency meeting of ambassadors from the US-led military alliance in Brussels on Wednesday.

NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Russia bears “ultimate responsibility” for the incident, “as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.”

President Joe Biden was asleep on the other side of the world when aides woke him up in the middle of the night there with urgent news:?a missile had struck Poland?and killed two people.

By 5:30 am local time in Bali, where the president was?attending the G20 summit, Biden, still in a t-shirt and khakis, was on the phone with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda seeking clarity on where the missile had actually come from — a critical fact due to the potentially dire implications of a Russian missile strike on a NATO ally.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was traveling with Biden, had also been roused with a knock on the door by his body man around 4 a.m. local time with news of the explosion, a US official said — news that most US officials only discovered from public reports and conversations with Polish officials.

Read the full story here.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations listens as members of the Security Council speak about the current state of the Ukrainian conflict at the United Nations headquarters on November 16, in New York City, USA.

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the country is “ready to cooperate with the Polish side” on the investigation into the missile that killed two people in Poland on Tuesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country wants to establish all the facts surrounding the missile that landed in Poland and noted in his daily video address that “clarification of all the circumstances of how Russian aggression crossed the Polish border” was now an issue before the UN Security Council.

The ambassador also told the Security Council that Russia’s attacks were creating a humanitarian disaster that could spill beyond Ukraine.

Some context:?The leaders of Poland and NATO said the missile that killed two people in Polish territory on Tuesday was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending their country against a barrage of Russian strikes and that the incident appeared to be an accident.

The blast occurred outside the rural eastern Polish town of Przewodow, about 4 miles (about 6.4 kilometers) west of the Ukrainian border on Tuesday afternoon, roughly the same time as Russia launched its biggest wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month.

CNN’s Tim Lister contributed to this report.

Poland’s ambassador to NATO said the “ultimate responsibility lies with Russia,” following the deadly missile that landed on Polish territory on Tuesday.

Speaking to CNN, ambassador Tomasz Szatkowski said the incident would not have happened if Russia did not attack Ukraine and engaged in war crimes by attacking civilian infrastructure.?

When asked how Polish people are feeling following the incident, Szatkowski said “a certain level of apprehension is understandable,” adding authorities are doing a lot in order to reassure the population.

Later Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya rejected those claims.

Some more context:?The leaders of Poland and NATO said the missile was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending their country against a barrage of Russian strikes, and that the incident appeared to be an accident.

Poland’s investigation into the incident continues.

This is the first time a NATO country has been directly hit during the conflict. NATO head?Jens Stoltenberg?also said Russia bears “ultimate responsibility” for the incident, “as it continues?its illegal war against Ukraine.”?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers his nightly address from Kyiv on November 16.

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine wants to establish all the facts surrounding the missile that landed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people.

Polish officials have indicated it was likely a Ukrainian missile, deployed by its air defenses amid waves of Russian missile attacks Tuesday, that landed inside its border.

Zelensky said in his daily video address that “clarification of all the circumstances of how Russian aggression crossed the Polish border” was now an issue before the UN Security Council.

Zelensky said he had spoken with Polish President Andrzej?Duda and expressed his condolences but insisted it was “Russian aggression” that had claimed the lives of two Polish citizens.

Power cuts: Zelensky said Wednesday had been “a long and hard day,” following the onslaught of Russian missile strikes on infrastructure targets on Tuesday.

“Emergency and stabilization blackouts continue in 18 regions and in Kyiv. These are millions of consumers. We are doing everything to restore electricity — both generation and supply,” he said.

As for the recently liberated city of Kherson, Zelensky said his administration was doing its best to restore key services.

Accidents are not usually how big wars get bigger. But the threat of wild escalation has heavily hung over Russia’s blundering and brutal invasion of Ukraine almost since the beginning, and Tuesday’s?rocket blast in Poland brought that possibility reeling to the fore.

It now appears that this was not an act of Russia, deliberate or otherwise, but instead likely a Ukrainian attempt to intercept a Russian missile gone awry. Ultimately, however, it is perhaps a chilling side-effect of Ukraine having to defend itself from wave after wave of Russian missile attacks?targeting its people and civilian infrastructure.

Poland has now backed away from invoking discussions under NATO’s Article 4, in which it would have triggered further consultations about how to defend itself. But where does this brief moment of panic leave NATO and its role as the main backer and bankroller of Ukraine’s hard and bloody defense of its territory from Russian aggression?

That Polish president Andrzej Duda has said this was “probably an accident” by Ukraine’s air defenses reduces the likelihood of an immediate NATO response at all. Wreckage may help back up suggestions that the missile came from a Russian-made S-300 air defense system operated by the Ukrainians. But ultimately, finding this incident to be an accident is the best outcome for all parties. It provides an easy moment too for NATO to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses, perhaps with systems that might not accidentally hit its member states.

Read the full analysis here.

One week after saying there may be a window for peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, the top US general laid out a comprehensive list of Russia’s failures and suggested negotiations — if they were to occur — would be done from a position of strength for Kyiv.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.?Mark Milley?said the Russian military was “really hurting bad” after nearly nine months of war in which the Kremlin has failed to achieve any of its goals. The Ukrainians have racked up “success after success after success,” Milley quipped, while the Russians “have failed every single time.”

Those failures, Milley suggested, which come on top of Ukraine’s recent liberation of Kherson, may even allow Ukraine to push for what it is unlikely to achieve militarily: a withdrawal of Russian forces.

Read more here.