Russia on its back in Ukraine, says top US general, Zelenskyy denies Poland missile misfire

A top US general disclosed that Russia has failed to achieve any of its goals in Ukraine and was “really hurting bad” after nearly nine months of war, in which the Ukrainians have racked up “success after success”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has disputed a claim by Poland that a missile strike that hit a Polish village on Tuesday came from Ukrainian air defences. “I believe that this was a Russian missile, based on our military reports,” he said.

Two people were killed by the missile in a Polish village near the Ukraine-Poland border, the same day Russia fired 90 missiles at cities across Ukraine, targeting its energy grid and worsening power blackouts for millions. The Kyiv government said it was the most intense barrage of the nine-month-long war.

Here are the top developments on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war:
At a press conference, US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley laid out a comprehensive list of Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine. “Russians failed every single time. They’ve lost strategically, they’ve lost operationally and tactically. What they have tried to do, they failed at.”

However, he also played down Ukraine’s chances of any near-term, outright victory.

“There may be a political solution where, politically, the Russians withdraw. That’s possible,” he added, saying Russia “right now is on its back.”

The United States and its allies on Wednesday criticised Russia in the United Nations Security Council over missile attacks on Ukraine in a meeting a day after the missile that Nato said was a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defenses crashed inside Poland.

“This tragedy would never have happened but for Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure,” Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the Security Council.

“Ukraine has every right to defend itself against this barrage,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Nato member Poland said that a missile strike in Polish farmland that killed two people appeared to be unintentional and was probably launched by air defences in neighbouring Ukraine.

“Ukraine’s defense was launching their missiles in various directions, and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the 30-nation military alliance in Brussels, echoed the preliminary Polish findings. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, contradicted them and asked for further investigation.

“I have no doubt that it was not our missile,” Zelenskyy said, asserting his belief that the explosion in Poland was caused by a Russian missile.

Zelenskyy held a meeting on Tuesday with US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns, who is in the region to discuss the war in Ukraine. Russia’s nuclear threat had figured in his talks with the spy chief, the Ukrainian president said.