(Reuters) – Two people died in an explosion in a Polish village near the border with Ukraine, firefighters said, with the United States saying it was investigating unconfirmed reports the blast was caused by stray Russian missiles

FIGHTING

* The Associated Press cited a senior U.S. intelligence official as saying the blast in the eastern Polish village of Przewodow was caused by Russian missiles crossing into Poland, a member of the Western military alliance NATO. Russia’s defence ministry said no strikes occurred against targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border that had been carried out by Russian weapons, IFX news agency reported. In Washington, the Pentagon said it could not confirm Russian missiles had landed on Polish territory.

* Missiles hit cities including the capital Kyiv, Lviv and Rivne in the west, Kharkiv in the northeast, Kryvyi Rih and Poltava in the centre, Odesa and Mikolaiv in the south and Zhytomyr in the north, in what Kyiv said was the heaviest wave of missile strikes in nearly nine months of war.

* Civil servants working for the Russian-installed administration in Nova Kakhovka, the second-largest city in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, have left along with thousands of residents due to fighting, officials said.

* Russia is now engaged in a defensive operation in Ukraine following its withdrawal from the southern city of Kherson, a Western official, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed to reclaim all its occupied territory.

* The governor of the Belgorod region of southern Russia said that two people had been killed and three wounded by shelling in a town near the border with Ukraine.

* * The United States believes Russian troops carried out a relatively orderly withdrawal from Kherson, a senior U.S. military official said, in contrast to some of the more chaotic retreats earlier this year.

* The U.N. human rights office (OHCHR) said that both Russia and Ukraine have tortured prisoners of war during the nearly nine-month conflict, citing examples including the use of electric shocks and forced nudity.

DIPLOMACY

* A Western-led push to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominated the Group of 20 (G20) summit on the Indonesian island of Bali, where leaders of major economies grappled with a dizzying array of issues from hunger to nuclear threats.

* European Union countries should work together in replenishing their military inventories and avoid competing with each other amid ongoing arms deliveries to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat said.

* United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had a “very frank and open discussion” on the Black Sea grain deal with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, the United Nations said.

* Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a meeting at the Group of 20 (G20) summit that Moscow’s position that a nuclear war ought not be fought showed a “rational” and “responsible” attitude.