Leaders of the Group of Seven condemned the “abominable” missile attack on the Kremenchuk mall as a war crime. The sharp criticism came on the second day of the G-7 summit in the Bavarian alps where leaders also pledged to keep up their financial and military support for Ukraine as long as needed.
A Ukrainian shopping mall was engulfed in flames after a Russian missile strike in central Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said more than 1,000 civilians were on site. At least 13 people died, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
The Group of Seven leaders condemned the attack as a war crime.
NATO announced an ambitious plan to boost the size of its high-readiness force to 300,000 as it implements a “fundamental shift” in its deterrence plans after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Group of Seven leaders meeting in the Bavarian Alps committed to supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion “for as long as it takes.”
Russia defaulted on its foreign-currency sovereign debt for the first time since 1918, the culmination of ever-tougher Western sanctions that shut down payment routes to overseas creditors.
Ukrainian troops are withdrawing from Sievierodonetsk, while Russian forces are trying to block nearby Lysychansk from the south, closing in on the last major holdout in the Luhansk region that Kyiv still controls, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on Facebook.
While Lysychansk remained the main hot spot of military action, Russian troops shelled Ukrainian positions and civilian areas elsewhere along the front line, including with air-to-land missiles.
