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- In televised comments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Washington and NATO are participating in the Ukraine war.
- Ukraine fires the deputy chief engineer of its Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, accusing him of collaborating with Moscow’s forces.
- Spanish police are investigating two new letter bombs a day after a letter exploded at the Ukrainian embassy, injuring an employee.
Missiles found with defective warheads, says Ukraine
Ukraine’s military says it has found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, whose apparent purpose was to distract air defences.
Mykola Danyliuk, a representative of the Ukrainian armed forces’ research unit, told a briefing that missile fragments that fell in the western regions of Lviv and Khmelnytskyi on October 31 had been identified as parts of Kh-55 cruise missiles.
The Soviet Union designed the Kh-55 in the 1970s for use on strategic targets.
But Danyliuk said Russia had not used the Kh-55 in Ukraine before October 31.
“The uniqueness of the missiles discovered was that they were equipped with a non-explosive warhead,” Danyliuk said.
“We can state that the launch of these missiles is intended to… distract the attention of Ukraine’s air defence system and tire it out, while modern Russian rockets… are fired on critical infrastructure objects”.
Danyliuk added that all the Kh-55 missiles discovered had their serial numbers scratched.
Ukrainian foreign minister calls for more EU sanctions
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met the EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell and called for more sanctions on Russia.
On Twitter, Kuleba wrote: “In Łódź, Josep Borrell and I agreed: total war against Ukraine means total support for Ukraine. I thanked the EU for its continued defence assistance and stressed that next EU sanctions should include those hitting Russia’s missile production industry: it must be put to a halt.”
In Łódź, @JosepBorrellF and I agreed: total war against Ukraine means total support for Ukraine. I thanked the EU for its continued defense assistance and stressed that next EU sanctions should include those hitting Russia’s missile production industry: it must be put to a halt. pic.twitter.com/mM5zioAbwd
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) December 1, 2022