Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with the West to provide an “air shield” over his country after another wave of Russian attacks killed at least 19 people Tuesday, while the U.S. and its allies warned Moscow that further escalation will be met with “severe consequences.”
Mr. Zelenskyy on Tuesday morning addressed a virtual gathering of the G-7, composed of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain. His comments came amid a brutal string of Russian drone-and-missile attacks that have targeted Ukrainian infrastructure over the past several days.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the strikes — the heaviest since the early days of the war in February — on the heels of a weekend explosion that damaged the sole bridge linking Russia with the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014.