While Ukraine was hit yesterday by a deluge of Russian strikes, the G7 held an emergency online meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday, October 11.
In particular, he told the G7 leaders that his country needed “modern and effective air defense systems”. While thanking the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, for their deliveries of these weapons, he called on Westerners to do more:
“I ask you to increase the general effort to contribute financially to the creation of an air shield for Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian president also accused Russia of “seek to involve Belarus directly in the war using the pretext that we would prepare an attack against this country”, quote again The Guardian. He called for an international mission to monitor the border between Ukraine and Belarus.
Russian troops pour into Belarus
Monday, October 10, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced the deployment of joint troops with Russia near Ukraine. And another British newspaper, The Independent, reports on Tuesday that Russian soldiers “arriving in Belarus by trainloads […] in huge quantities”, according to a Belarusian source from a reporter of the English-speaking Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post.
In a statement after the meeting, G7 leaders pledged financial and military support “constant and unwavering” in kyiv and again warned Russia that there would be “serious consequences” in the event of the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, reports The New York Times.
The press release “refers to a ‘post-conflict peace agreement’, a topic that Ukraine’s Western allies are usually careful to raise with caution so as not to appear to be pushing Ukraine to stop fighting and negotiate with Russia,” underlines the American newspaper.
Putin open to meeting with Biden
This Tuesday, Moscow, for its part, said it was open to a meeting between Vladimir Putin and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, at the G20 summit, scheduled for next month. Russia does not close the door to discussions on the war, but it has “received no serious offer”, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also told Russian television.
In parallel, the Russian forces continued their strikes, but their intensity would have decreased this afternoon, according to The New York Times.
“According to the Ukrainian military, as of noon on Tuesday, Russian forces had fired 28 cruise missiles into Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian air defense had shot down 20,” adds the daily.