Kyiv, Ukraine: Russia said on Tuesday it launched “mass” strikes on Ukraine hours ahead of a G7 meeting expected to condemn an earlier missile blitz that Kyiv’s allies said was a mark of Moscow’s desperation.
Officials in Ukraine’s western region of Lviv said at least three Russian missiles targeted energy infrastructure and the mayor of the region’s main city, also called Lviv, said about one-third of the city was without power.
Russia’s defence 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”.
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”.
Moscow’s forces rained down more than 80 missiles on cities across Ukraine on Monday, according to Kyiv.
Moscow says ahead of G7 meeting it expects more ‘confrontation’ with West
The Kremlin said Tuesday it expects more “confrontation” with the West, ahead of an emergency G7 meeting to discuss the latest Russian strikes on Ukraine.
“The mood ahead of the summit is well understood, it is easily predictable. The confrontation will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that Russia will “achieve its set goals” in Ukraine.
Peskov also criticised Washington’s pledge to provide Ukraine with “advanced air defence systems”.
“De facto, the United States is already bogged down in this affair,” he said, adding that the deliveries will make “this conflict longer and more painful for the Ukrainian side”.
“But it’s not going to change our goals and the end result,” he added.
Russian strikes Tuesday on the central Ukraine region of Dnipropetrovsk damaged the energy facilities, the region’s head said, on the second day of missile salvos across Ukraine.
“The Russians fired missiles at energy infrastructure in the Pavlograd and Kamian districts. There is serious destruction. Many settlements still do not have electricity,” the regional governor Valentin Reznichenko said on social media.
The Ukrainian military’s southern command said Russian forces had fired missiles at the southern Mykolaiv and Odessa regions, also causing damage to energy infrastructure.
“During a massive attack in the first half of the day, the enemy launched 16 cruise missiles… on south Ukraine. It has also dispatched two kamikaze drones against sites of critical infrastructure,” the military said, according to the Interfax news agency.
“Following drone and missiles attacks, two such sites were damaged” in the southwest, in Vinnytsia region, and “two workers were injured”, it added.
