‘Millions of people will be grateful’: Zelensky pleads for Ukraine ‘air shield’

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky called on Tuesday for wealthy Western nations to help Kyiv create an “air shield” after a rash of deadly Russian aerial attacks.

Zelensky, who told the G7 club of rich nations “millions of people would be grateful” for help fending off attacks from the sky, warned Russia “still has room for further escalation” after Monday’s bloody missile salvoes across Ukraine.

Following the attacks, Washington pledged to up shipments of air defences to Ukraine, while Germany promised delivery “in the coming days” of the first Iris-T missile shield reportedly capable of protecting a city.

In a week of marked escalation in the war, G7 leaders said that Belarus’s plan to deploy joint forces with Russia constituted a new instance of “complicity” with Moscow, warning Minsk to “stop enabling” Russia’s invasion.

Following talks with Zelensky, G7 leaders said they would hold Russian President Vladimir Putin to account for the attacks but did not say how.

Before the G7 meeting, the Kremlin had already said it expected “confrontation” with the West to continue.

Russia followed up the missile launches at the start of the week with further aerial attacks on Tuesday.

Officials in Ukraine’s western region of Lviv said at least three Russian missiles fired Tuesday targeted energy infrastructure, forcing Kyiv to ask people to cut their electricity usage and switch off appliances at night.

Russia’s defence ministry confirmed Tuesday’s renewed attacks, saying it had carried out massive strikes using long-range and high-precision weapons and that “all assigned targets were hit”.