Ukraine leader to ask G7 for air defence weapons after Russian strikes

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will ask the leaders of the G7 group of nations to urgently supply Ukraine with air defence weapons, after Russia rained down cruise missiles in the latest escalation of its unravelling invasion.

Ukrainians woke up to the wailing of new air raid sirens on Tuesday, with parts of the country left without power. Officials said 19 were killed on Monday in cruise missile strikes across the country, the biggest air raids since the start of the war.

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 the annexed Crimea.

Kyiv and its allies condemned Russia's strikes, which mainly hit civil infrastructure such as power stations. Missiles also landed in parks, tourist sites and busy rush-hour streets.

US 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 Zelenskiy (above), who has called air defence systems his "number one priority". Biden has already promised more air defences.

The broad avenues of the capital Kyiv were largely deserted after air raid sirens resounded as the morning rush hour was beginning – the same time that Russian missiles struck the day before. Residents took cover again deep in the underground Metro, where trains were still running.

Viktoriya Moshkivski, 35, her husband and their two sons were among hundreds of people waiting for the all-clear in the Zolotye Vorota station, one of the deepest, near the downtown park where a missile ripped a crater next to a playground on Monday.

"We live on the other side of the street, and they got scared by the siren. So, we brought them down here," Moshkiviski said as her sons, Timur, five, and Rinat, three, sat by her side on a sleeping bag, the younger playing with a King Kong action figure.

Putin "thinks that if he scares the population, he can ask for concessions, but he is not scaring us," she said. "He is pissing us off."

More strikes

Ukrainian officials reported more strikes on Tuesday, including one in the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia which killed at least one person, although there did not appear to be a repeat of Monday's nationwide attacks.

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine's sixth largest city, has remained under Ukrainian control throughout the war, despite Russia occupying most of the surrounding province, among four partially occupied regions that Moscow claims to have annexed this month.

Apartment blocks there have been struck overnight at least three times in the past week, killing civilians while they slept. Moscow has denied intentionally targeting them.

In an overnight video address from the scene of one of the attacks in Kyiv, Zelenskiy promised that Ukraine would keep fighting.

"We will do everything to strengthen our armed forces. We will make the battlefield more painful for the enemy."

As many as 301 settlements in the regions of Kyiv, Lviv, Sumy, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky remained without electricity on Tuesday morning.

Faced with blackouts, Ukraine has halted electricity exports to neighbouring Moldova and the European Union, at a time when the continent already faces surging power prices that have stoked inflation and hampered industrial activity.

Belarus fears

G7 leaders are also expected to issue a warning Belarus, Moscow's closest ally, against deeper involvement in the war, after Minsk said on Monday it was deploying soldiers with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what it called a threat from Kyiv and its Western allies.

Belarus has allowed its territory to be used as a staging ground for Russian forces during the war, but has so far stopped short of sending troops to fight.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told France Inter radio on Tuesday that G7 heads of state would probably warn Belarus to stay out of the conflict.

"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."

Moscow has accused the West of escalating the conflict by supporting Ukraine.

"We warn and hope that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by RIA news agency on Tuesday.

Since Ukrainian forces broke through Russia's front lines in September, Putin has not only announced the annexation of Ukrainian territory but also called up hundreds of thousands of reservists and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Russia suffered a diplomatic setback on Monday, as the UN General Assembly voted to reject its call for the 193-member body to allow a secret ballot this week in a debate over whether to condemn Moscow's annexations of Ukrainian regions.

The president of the United Arab Emirates, a member of the group of oil producers known as OPEC+ that rebuffed the United States last week by announcing steep production cuts, will travel to Russia on Tuesday to meet Putin and push for "military de-escalation", UAE state news agency WAM reported.

- Reuters