- Poland investigates the area while the United States blames Moscow but continues to call for prudence.
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| The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, in his office. / Telegram |
Zelensky now lowers his tone on the missile after seeing himself almost isolated in his accusations against Russia: "No one is one hundred percent sure"
Two days after a missile landed in Poland killing two people, the Ukrainian government has gone from pointing quickly and directly at Russia to softening its speech, opting for a kind of prudence that is more in line with what NATO has shown, by the United States and also by Warsaw. Thus, Volodimir Zelensky assured this Thursday that "nobody is one hundred percent sure of what happened", although he again denied that it was necessarily a projectile from Kyiv's anti-aircraft defenses, which remains the most plausible theory.
"I don't know 100 percent. I think the world doesn't know 100 percent what happened either," Zelenski repeated just hours after saying he had "no doubt" that it was not a Ukrainian missile. In addition, its Executive insists on requesting access to the impact zone too, among other things, "demonstrate" the Russian authorship of the incident. What the president did confirm was something that was already evident: his troops activated the anti-aircraft systems in the face of the wave of bombardments that fell on Tuesday throughout several cities.
If you look at the photo as a whole after what happened in Poland, one of the conclusions that can be drawn is that Zelenski has been left alone with his direct accusations against Russia, which he made minutes after the incident was confirmed. Nobody or a leader got wet as clearly as he did, and once things clear up and move Moscow away from being responsible for a direct attack, the Ukrainian government needs to moderate its message. Meanwhile, the Warsaw investigation continues its course and the president himself, Andrej Duda, was in the area to analyze what happened. For now, and once Poland has avoided invoking the NATO Treaty, work is being done at a lower level in order to clarify what happened.
The fact that Russia does not want to be directly involved does not mean that the responsibility does not lie with Russia. That is the summary of Western discourse. If the missile fell, it is because Moscow invaded Ukraine. And this was reaffirmed by Kuleba and the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, in a telephone conversation. Kuleba has indicated that both he and Blinken "share the position that Russia is solely responsible for the terror sown through the bombings" and the "consequences" that this entails for third countries. That is the same thesis defended by the European Union, as well as the Atlantic Alliance, which, as it did in the hours after the incident, repeats that "what happened is not the fault" of Kyiv.
Russia, for its part, charges directly against the United States. And it is that the spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, pointed out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have occurred if the White House "had pressured Ukraine in time." "Washington says that if there were no Russian bombings, an S-300 of the Ukrainian Armed Forces would not have crashed in Poland. But if you follow this logic, then the situation would have to be looked at in another direction and it would have to be concluded that if Had there not been a complete unwillingness on the part of the United States and NATO to address Russia's concerns, there would not have been a special military operation in Ukraine," he snapped.
Beyond, the attacks are kept on the battlefield when winter knocks on the door. Ukraine once again accused Russia of bombing Kyiv and other large Ukrainian cities, such as Zaporizhia or Dnipro, as well as in the Donetsk region. "Russian terrorists have just shelled Dnipro. They have destroyed two critical infrastructures and one person has been injured," reports Kiril Timoshenko of the Ukrainian presidential office. In the capital, the anti-aircraft defenses were activated again and, in turn, there were several explosions followed by columns of smoke in the city of Dzhankoy, in the north of the Crimean peninsula, a Ukrainian territory that was occupied by Russia in 2014.
Attacks on "critical" infrastructure
One of Zelenski's great concerns is precisely Kyiv. The Government reiterated that the objective of these missiles was to hit "infrastructure of vital importance" but denies that Russian advances are taking place on the ground. In any case, these bombs cause many parts of Ukraine to go completely dark. "The duration of the power outages depends on the security situation and the speed at which damaged infrastructures are repaired," Kuleba himself warned.
Within the framework of the war, few advances have been made, but a relatively important one has been the extension of the agreement for the export of grain. Russia and Ukraine have agreed that it will remain in force for another 120 days. The UN, in fact, has celebrated that this rapprochement has occurred. "I applaud the agreement between all parties to maintain the Black Sea Grain Initiative to facilitate the safe navigation of exports of grain, food products, and fertilizers from Ukraine," said its secretary general, Antonio Guterres, about an agreement that follows the mediation of Turkey.
"Both agreements signed in Istanbul three months ago are essential to lower food and fertilizer prices and avoid a global food crisis," said Guterres himself, who has argued that "the initiative demonstrates the importance of discreet diplomacy and finding multilateral solutions. For his part, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, put data into the pact. "With the delivery of more than eleven million tons of grains and food products to people in need through nearly 500 ships during the last four months, the importance and benefits of this agreement for food supply and security of the world are self-evident".
Turkey precisely wants to strengthen its role as a mediator. In fact, Erdogan has asked the authorities of the United States and Russia to "talk more" in order to avoid a "new world war" and recalled that both have promised not to use nuclear weapons. "Let me tell you this: according to the information my intelligence chief has, neither Russia nor the United States has any intention of using this type of weapon. We want them to speak more often," the Ottoman president concluded.
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