Ukraine's president to ask G7 leaders for more arms after deadly Russian strikes
CBC
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will ask the leaders of the G7 to urgently supply Ukraine with air defence weapons on Tuesday, after Russia rained down cruise missiles on cities across the country.
New missile strikes killed at least one person in the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia and left part of the western city of Lviv without power, officials said, after Ukraine woke up to the wailing of air raid sirens for a second day.
Other parts of the country remained blacked out after the cruise missile attacks on Monday, which officials said killed 19 people in the biggest air raids since the start of the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, under domestic pressure to ramp up the conflict as his forces have lost ground since the start of September, said he ordered the strikes as revenge for an explosion that damaged Russia's bridge to annexed Crimea.
Kyiv and its allies condemned Monday's attacks, which mainly hit civil infrastructure such as power stations. Missiles also landed in parks, tourist sites and busy rush-hour streets.
The United Nations human rights office says Russian missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday were "particularly shocking" and could amount to war crimes.
"Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations," spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
"We have to stress that intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects — that is, objects which are not military objectives — amount to a war crime," she added.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven leaders will convene virtually later on Tuesday to discuss what more they can do to support Ukraine and to listen to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has called air defence systems his "No. 1 priority," something Biden has already promised to provide.
G7 leaders may also warn Belarus, a close Russian ally, against closer involvement in the war after Minsk said on Monday it was deploying its soldiers with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what it said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers in the West.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told France Inter radio on Tuesday that G7 heads of state would probably warn Belarus, which is already used by Russia as a logistics base and as a platform from which to fire missiles, not to get more involved.
"Russia has crossed another line with a tactic that doesn't involve fighting on the battlefield but carrying out indiscriminate bombings and since yesterday deliberately hitting civilian targets on all Ukrainian territory," said Colonna.
"That is a violation of the rules of war and international law," she went on, saying that France had agreed to ramp up weapons supplies to Kyiv after Monday's attack.
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