KYIV —
Russia said on Tuesday it launched
mass strikes on Ukraine hours ahead of a meeting of G7 leaders who Kyiv is
lobbying to supply enhanced air defenses against what it called “desperate”
attacks by Moscow.
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Officials in Ukraine’s western region of Lviv said
at least three Russian missiles targeted energy infrastructure forcing Kyiv to
ask people to cut their electricity usage and switch off appliances at night.
Russia’s defense ministry confirmed the attacks
saying it had carried out massive strikes using long-range and high-precision
weapons and that “all assigned targets were hit”.
In Lviv, the largest city in the region of the same
name, the mayor said that one-third of homes were without power.
Ukraine has ratcheted up its calls for advanced air
defense systems to help stave off future Russian barrages, with Prime Minister
Denys Shmygal asking for “more modern weapons to protect the sky and
civilians”.
The G7 meeting comes a day after Russian missiles
rocked the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months. President
Volodymyr Zelensky was defiant, warning his country “cannot be intimidated”.
The Ukrainian defense ministry said Monday that
Russia had fired 83 missiles at Ukraine, of which its air defenses shot down
52, among which were 43 cruise missiles.
Ukraine’s emergency services said on Tuesday that
the overall toll had risen to 19 dead and more than 100 people wounded.
The
Kremlin said it expected “confrontation” with
the West to continue as the G7 leaders prepared to meet.
The UN said on Tuesday the wave of attacks may have
violated the laws of war and would amount to war crimes if civilians were deliberately
targeted.
Monday’s mass barrage came in apparent retaliation
for an explosion on Saturday that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to
Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for
the bridge blast and warned of “severe” responses to any further attacks.
‘Just peace’
Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes showed Moscow
was “desperate” after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks, a sentiment
echoed by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg who said they were “a sign of weakness”.
Turkey on Tuesday
called for a viable ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine “as soon as possible”,
with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expected to meet Putin in
Kazakhstan this week.
Speaking in a
televised interview, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also called for
a “just peace” based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
‘A profound change’
The office of UK Prime Minister
Liz Truss said she would use the gathering
“to urge fellow leaders to stay the course”.
“Nobody wants peace
more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve
to help them win it.”
German government
spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters on Monday that Chancellor Olaf
Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him “of the solidarity of Germany
and the other G7 states”.
French President
Emmanuel Macron convened his defense and foreign affairs ministers over the
strikes, which he said signaled “a profound change in the nature of this war”.
US President Joe
Biden condemned Monday’s attacks in stark terms, saying they demonstrated “the
utter brutality” of Putin’s “illegal war”.
In a statement, the
White House said Biden had spoken to Zelensky and had pledged to furnish
Ukraine with “advanced air defense systems”.
Putin meanwhile was
due to meet the head of the UN’s nuclear energy watchdog,
Rafael Grossi, in
Saint Petersburg on Tuesday to discuss the Russian-controlled nuclear plant in
the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia.
Fighting around the
facility for months has raised fears of a nuclear accident.
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