More than 50 Western countries have met to promise more weapons for Ukraine, focusing on its need for air defences after Moscow launched its most intense missile strikes since the start of the war.
Opening the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the headquarters of Nato in Brussels on Wednesday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russia’s huge wave of missile attacks this week had laid bare the “malice and cruelty” of its war.
Ukraine had shifted the momentum in the conflict since September with “extraordinary” gains, but would need more help to keep fighting, he said.
“These victories belong to Ukraine’s brave soldiers. But the Contact Group’s security assistance, training, and sustainment efforts have been vital,” Mr Austin said.
Russian attacks using more than 100 missiles have killed at least 26 people across Ukraine since Monday, when President Vladimir Putin ordered what he called retaliatory strikes against Ukraine for an explosion on a key bridge.
Air raid sirens sounded across swathes of Ukraine for a third day on Wednesday and there were reports of some shelling, but no sign of a repeat of the intensive countrywide strikes of the previous two days.
The missiles have mostly targeted civilian electricity and heating infrastructure, while some hit busy roads, parks and tourist sites, including in the centre of Kyiv.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia’s missile attacks were a sign of weakness.
“The reality is that they’re not able to make progress on the battlefield. Russia is actually losing on the battlefield,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
Since Monday’s attacks, Germany has sent the first of four planned IRIS-T SLM air defence systems, while Washington said it would speed up the delivery of a promised NASAMS air defence system.
The attack followed Saturday’s explosion on the 12 mile-long Kerch Bridge linking Russia to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
The blast destroyed one section of the road bridge, temporarily halting road traffic. It also destroyed several fuel tankers on a train heading towards the annexed peninsula from neighbouring southern Russia.
The bridge, a prestige project personally opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, had become logistically vital to his military campaign, with supplies to Russian troops fighting in south Ukraine channelled through it.
Eight people including five Russians have been arrested by Moscow’s Federal Security Service (FSB) over the blast, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Wednesday.
The FSB has accused the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry of orchestrating the attack.
Ukraine has not officially confirmed its involvement in the blast, but some Ukrainian officials have celebrated the damage.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said 28 more missiles were fired, 20 of which were shot down.
In his latest nightly video address, Mr Zelensky called on the West to impose more sanctions on Russia in response to “a new wave of terror”.
Mr Zelensky said: “For such a new wave of terror there must be a new wave of responsibility for Russia - new sanctions, new forms of political pressure and new forms of support for Ukraine.”
“The terrorist state must be deprived of even the thought that any wave of terror can bring it anything.”
It emerged on Wednesday that prosecutors for International Mobile Justice teams are investigating this week’s wave of Russian missile strikes in Kyiv and cities across Ukraine as possible war crimes.
Fresh blasts were reported on Wednesday in Russian-occupied Kherson in the south of the country, according to Russian media.
Kherson was one of the first cities to fall to Russian forces after they launched their invasion in Ukraine in February.
Earlier on Wednesday, Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Russian-controlled Melitopol in the south of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on the Telegram messaging app that there was a powerful explosion in the city.
RIA reported, citing local Russia-installed police, that a device exploded near the city’s central market. There were no casualties, RIA reported.
