The White House on Tuesday condemned Russia’s latest barrage of strikes against critical infrastructure and residential buildings far from the front lines in Ukraine, pledging global unity in the face of the Kremlin’s unrelenting aggression.
Russian airstrikes rained down on Ukraine’s power grid in regions as far west as Lviv, some 40 miles from the Polish border, prompting emergency blackouts in the capital Kyiv and elsewhere.
Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko also reported strikes against residential buildings and said authorities have found one body in an apartment building that was struck.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan praised Ukrainian resilience in the face of Russian aggression and pledged that the U.S. will stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”
The attacks come as world leaders gathered in Indonesia for the annual summit of the Group of 20 major economies. The war in Ukraine topped the agenda at the summit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the G-20.
“It is not lost on us that, as world leaders meet at the G-20 in Bali to discuss the issues of significant importance to the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Russia again threatens those lives and destroys Ukraine’s critical infrastructure,” Mr. Sullivan said. “These Russian strikes will serve to only deepen the concerns among the G?20 about the destabilizing impact of Putin’s war.”
He said the U.S. and its allies would keep arming Ukraine, including with air defense systems.
Russia’s renewed attacks against critical infrastructure come just days after Russia withdrew from Kherson, resulting in a highly visible strategic blow adding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s string of battlefield losses.
Russia has resorted to targeting Ukraine’s power grid in a bid to grind down Ukrainian resolve as winter approaches.