After Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to the leaders of G7 nations for modern tanks, artillery, and long-range weapons to counter Russia’s devastating invasion of his country, the Group of Seven pledged on Monday unwavering support to Ukraine.
G7 leaders promised to meet Kyiv’s urgent requirements for assistance with military and air defense systems, as well as long-range weapons, modern tanks, artillery units, and shells.
Zelenskiy also urged them to support convening this winter a special global peace summit dedicated to bringing peace to Ukraine, outlining three steps in the process: asking allies for more military equipment, asking them to commit to ensuring Ukraine’s financial, energy, and social stability next year by increasing assistance and asking Moscow to start withdrawing troops this Christmas.
Stressing that Moscow will ultimately need to pay to restore the critical infrastructure in Ukraine it damaged or destroyed through its invasion, they condemned strikes targeting civilians and energy facilities after Ukraine’s president appealed to them for additional 2bn cubic meters of natural gas for the winter.
Per the media reports quoting Ukraine’s state energy provider Ukrenergo, the country is suffering a significant power deficit due to the limited capacity of thermal and hydroelectric power plants caused by Russian attacks.
The destruction caused by these attacks, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, makes a general blackout indeed realistic in a situation when citizens are with no electricity, heating, or water for 30 hours or longer at a time.
Amid growing concerns that Russian attacks on the Ukrainian electricity grid could create a new wave of refugees during the depths of winter, raised by Ukraine’s PM Denys Shmyhal on Monday before the scheduled Ukraine humanitarian aid conference in Paris, Kyiv has asked its western allies to supply Patriot missiles batteries and other modern air defense systems.
Germany has recently rejected Poland’s attempt to get it to deploy a Patriot battery into the country and Washington has also resisted so far supplying Kyiv with sophisticated air defense systems.
In its latest pledge, Washington announced sending aid and weapons but stressed that there are no plans to send US troops to Ukraine.