KYIV: US-led Nato said on Tuesday its member states were boosting security around key installations as Russia escalated its attacks on Ukraine and stepped up threats against the West. Russian missiles pounded Ukraine for a second day, after dozens of air raids across the country on Monday that killed 19 people, wounded more than 100 and knocked out power supplies.
Moscow has annexed new tracts of Ukraine, mobilised hundreds of thousands of Russians to fight and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear arms in recent weeks, spreading alarm in the West. A European diplomat said Nato was considering convening
a virtual summit of the Western defence alliance to consider its response.
Nato was closely monitoring Russia’s nuclear forces, but had not seen any change in its nuclear posture, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.
The allies were increasing security around critical infrastructure after attacks on gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea and any deliberate attack would be met with a “united and determined response”, he said. It is still unclear who was behind the recent explosions.
More missile strikes killed at least one person in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Zaporizhzhia and left part of the western city of Lviv without power, local officials said. Air raid sirens earlier wailed across Ukraine for a second day.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, under domestic pressure to ramp up the seven-month war as his forces have lost ground since early September, said he had ordered the strikes as revenge for a blast that damaged Russia’s bridge to annexed Crimea.
Kyiv and its allies have condemned the attacks, which mainly hit civil infrastructure such as power stations but also landed in parks, tourist sites and busy rush hour streets.
The White House said US President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders met virtually on Tuesday to discuss what more they could do to support Ukraine and they listened to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has called air defence systems his “number 1 priority”.
Biden has already promised more air defences, a pledge that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said would extend the conflict.
The broad avenues of the capital Kyiv were largely deserted on Tuesday after air raid sirens resounded at the start of the morning rush hour – the same time that Russian missiles struck on Monday. Residents took cover again deep in the underground Metro, where trains were still running.
Viktoriya Moshkivski, 35, and her family were among hundreds of people waiting for the all-clear in the Zoloti Vorota station, near a park where a missile ripped a crater next to a playground on Monday. — Reuters
