KYIV: U.S.-led NATO said on Tuesday its member states were boosting security around key installations as Russia escalated its attacks on Ukraine and stepped up threats against the West.
Russian missiles pounded Ukraine for a second day, after dozens of air raids across the country on Monday that killed 19 people, wounded more than 100 and knocked out power supplies.
Moscow has annexed new tracts of Ukraine, mobilised hundreds of thousands of Russians to fight and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear arms in recent weeks, spreading alarm in the West. A European diplomat said NATO was considering convening a virtual summit of the Western defence alliance to consider its response.
NATO was closely monitoring Russia's nuclear forces, but had not seen any change in its nuclear posture, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.
The allies were increasing security around critical infrastructure after attacks on gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea and any deliberate attack would be met with a "united and determined response", he said. It is still unclear who was behind the recent explosions.
More missile strikes killed at least one person in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Zaporizhzhia and left part of the western city of Lviv without power, local officials said. Air raid sirens earlier wailed across Ukraine for a second day.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, under domestic pressure to ramp up the seven-month war as his forces have lost ground since early September, said he had ordered the strikes as revenge for a blast that damaged Russia's bridge to annexed Crimea.
Kyiv and its allies have condemned the attacks, which mainly hit civil infrastructure such as power stations but also landed in parks, tourist sites and busy rush hour streets.
The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders met virtually on Tuesday to discuss what more they could do to support Ukraine and they listened to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has called air defence systems his "number 1 priority".
Biden has already promised more air defences, a pledge that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said would extend the conflict.
The broad avenues of the capital Kyiv were largely deserted on Tuesday after air raid sirens resounded at the start of the morning rush hour – the same time that Russian missiles struck on Monday. Residents took cover again deep in the underground Metro, where trains were still running.
Viktoriya Moshkivski, 35, and her family were among hundreds of people waiting for the all-clear in the Zoloti Vorota station, near a park where a missile ripped a crater next to a playground on Monday.
"(Putin) thinks that if he scares the population, he can ask for concessions, but he is not scaring us. He is pissing us off," she said as her sons, Timur, 5, and Rinat, 3, sat by her side on a sleeping bag, the younger playing with a King Kong action figure.
MORE STRIKES
Russia said it continued to launch long-range air strikes on Ukraine's energy and military infrastructure on Tuesday, although the attacks did not seem as intense as the day before.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the main targets were energy facilities in a campaign he said had been planned well in advance and was designed to make life unbearable for civilians.
"They’ve hit many yesterday and they hit the same and new ones today," he wrote on Twitter. Hundreds of settlements around Kyiv, Lviv and elsewhere were still without power on Tuesday, Deputy Interior Minister Yevheniy Yenin told a briefing.
The governor of the southern town of Mykolayiv said Russia was firing enough to keep people in shelters. "What is this if not terror?" he said on national television.
In Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine's sixth-largest city, apartment blocks have been struck overnight at least three times in the past week, killing civilians while they slept. Moscow has denied intentionally targeting them.
The city has remained under Ukrainian control after Russia occupied most of the surrounding province, among four partially occupied regions that Moscow claims to have annexed this month.
In an overnight video address from the scene of one of the attacks in Kyiv, Zelenskiy promised Ukraine would keep fighting.
"We will do everything to strengthen our armed forces. We will make the battlefield more painful for the enemy."
BELARUS FEARS
G7 leaders may also warn Belarus, Moscow's closest ally, after Minsk said on Monday it was deploying soldiers with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what it called a threat from Kyiv and its Western allies.
Belarus, whose troops have not yet crossed into Ukraine, could face more sanctions if it gets more involved, French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna told French radio.
Russia violated the rules of war with Monday's attacks, she added.
Moscow has accused the West of escalating the conflict by supporting Ukraine.
"We warn and hope that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by RIA news agency on Tuesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia would not turn down a meeting between Putin and Biden at a forthcoming G20 meeting and would consider the proposal if it receives one.
Putin on Tuesday met the president of the United Arab Emirates, a member of the group of oil producers known as OPEC+ that rebuffed the United States last week by announcing steep production cuts.
State news agency WAM had said President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan would push for "military de-escalation".
The Kremlin also said Putin would meet on Thursday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has offered to host peace talks.
NATO members tighten security as G7 leaders discuss Russia's assault on Ukraine
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NATO members tighten security as G7 leaders discuss Russia's assault on Ukraine
- NATO was closely monitoring Russia's nuclear forces, but had not seen any change in its nuclear posture
- The allies were increasing security around critical infrastructure after attacks on gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea
Agonizing wait as Switzerland works to identify New Year’s fire victims
- Authorities begin moving bodies from burned-out bar in luxury ski resor Crans-Montana
- At least 40 people were killed in one of Switzerland's worst tragedies
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland: Families endured an agonizing wait for news of their loved ones Friday as Swiss investigators rushed to identify victims of a ski resort fire at a New Year’s celebration that killed at least 40 people.
Authorities began moving bodies from the burned-out bar in the luxury ski resort town Crans-Montana late Friday morning, with the first silver-colored hearse rolling into the funeral center in nearby Sion shortly after 11:00 am (1000 GMT), AFP journalists saw.
Around 115 people were also injured in the fire, many of them critical condition.
As the scope of the tragedy — one of Switzerland’s worst — began to sink in, Crans-Montana appeared enveloped in a stunned silence.
“The atmosphere is heavy,” Dejan Bajic, a 56-year-old tourist from Geneva who has been coming to the resort since 1974, told AFP.
“It’s like a small village; everyone knows someone who knows someone who’s been affected,” he said.
It is not yet clear what set off the blaze at Le Constellation, a bar popular with young tourists, at around 1:30 am (0030 GMT) Thursday.
Bystanders described scenes of panic and chaos as people tried to break the windows to escape and others, covered in burns, poured into the street.
‘Screaming in pain’
Edmond Cocquyt, a Belgian tourist, told AFP he had seen “bodies lying here, ... covered with a white sheet,” and “young people, totally burned, who were still alive... Screaming in pain.”
The exact death toll was still being established.
And it could rise, with canton president Mathias Reynard telling the regional newspaper Wallizer Bote that at least 80 of the 115 injured were in critical condition.
Swiss authorities warned it could take days to identify everyone who perished, an agonizing wait for family and friends.
Condolences poured in from around the world, including from Pope Leo XIV, who offered “compassion and solidarity” to victims’ families.
Online, desperate appeals abound to find the missing.
“We’ve tried to reach our friends. We took loads of photos and posted them on Instagram, Facebook, all possible social networks to try to find them,” said Eleonore, 17. “But there’s nothing. No response.”
‘The apocalypse’
The exact number of people who were at the bar when it went up in flames remains unclear.
Le Constellation had a capacity of 300 people, plus another 40 people on its terrace, according to the Crans-Montana website.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin, who took office on Thursday, called the fire “a calamity of unprecedented, terrifying proportions” and announced that flags would be flown at half-mast for five days.
“We thought it was just a small fire — but when we got there, it was war,” Mathys, from the neighboring village of Chermignon-d’en-Bas, told AFP. “That’s the only word I can use to describe it: the apocalypse.”
Authorities have declined to speculate on what caused the tragedy, saying only that it was not an attack.
Several witness accounts, broadcast by various media, pointed to sparklers mounted on champagne bottles and held aloft by restaurant staff as part of a regular “show” for patrons.
‘Dramatic’
Pictures and videos shared on social media also showed sparklers on champagne bottles held into the air, as an orange glow began spreading across the ceiling.
One video showed the flames advancing quickly as revellers initially continued to dance.
One young man playfully attempted to extinguish the flames with a large white cloth, but the scene became panic-stricken as people scrambled and screamed in the dark against a backdrop of smoke and flames.
The canton’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, said investigators would examine whether the bar met safety standards.
Red and white caution tape, flowers and candles adorned the street outside, while police shielded the site with white screens.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who said 13 Italians had been injured in the fire, and six remained missing, was among those to lay flowers at the site.
The French foreign ministry said nine French citizens figured among the injured, and eight others remained unaccounted for.
After emergency units at local hospitals filled, many of the injured were transported across Switzerland and beyond.
Patients are being treated in Italy, France and Germany, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country was ready to provide “specialized medical care to 14 injured.”
Multiple sources told AFP the bar owners were French nationals: a couple originally from Corsica who, according to a relative, are safe, but have been unreachable since the tragedy.
