Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stepped up his calls for urgent military assistance, saying NATO members must decide “whether we indeed are allies,” as a crucial vote in the U.S. Congress for a new Ukraine aid package was expected to finally take place on April 20.
"Our sky must become safe again," Zelenskiy told a video conference with NATO defense ministers on April 19.
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"It depends fully on your choice. Choice whether life is indeed equally valuable everywhere. Choice whether you have an equal attitude to all partners. Choice whether we indeed are allies," he said.
Zelenskiy said his embattled nation could not defend itself from the Russian invasion without additional support from Western allies.
"It is obvious that -- now while Russia has air advantage and can rely on its drone and rocket terror -- our capabilities on the ground, unfortunately, are limited," he added.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg reiterated the alliance’s support for Kyiv and stressed to members the need to further aid Ukraine given the perilous battlefield situation.
"The allies must dig deep into the inventories and speed up the delivery of missiles, artillery, and ammunition," Stoltenberg said.
"Ukraine is using the weapons we provided to destroy Russian combat capabilities. This makes us all safer. So support to Ukraine is not charity. It is an investment in our own security," he added.
Ukraine has been pleading for months for more air defense systems as it grapples with increasingly intense Russian air strikes on its infrastructure while its stocks of weapons and ammunition dwindle as critical U.S. aid remains stuck in Congress.
The United States has been by far the main provider of military assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia's invasion in February 2022.
A desperately needed $60.84 billion military aid package for Ukraine has until this week been blocked in the U.S. House of Representatives amid opposition from hard-liners in the Republican party who want to tie domestic policy issues such as immigration to a decision on foreign aid.
But the House on April 19 pressed forward on a package of $95 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan as a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers helped clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes, now expected to start at 1 p.m. on April 20.
On April 19, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that his recent visit to Washington marked "a shift in the issue of unblocking the aid from the United States."
"We received assurances of the support for the bill from both [the Republican and Democratic] parties. We expect that this large aid package from the U.S. will be voted on in the near future," Shmyhal added.
Separately, members of the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized nations responded to the strikes by pledging to boost Ukraine's air defenses.
"Every country that provides air defense systems to Ukraine, every leader who helps persuade our partners that air defense systems should not be stored in warehouses but deployed in real cities and communities facing terror, and everyone who supports our defense is a life saver," Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"We are determined to continue to provide military, financial, political, humanitarian, economic, and development support to Ukraine and its people," the G7 foreign ministers said at the end of a two-day meeting on the Italian island of Capri.
The G7 will "bolster Ukraine's air defense capabilities to save lives and protect critical infrastructure," the statement said, but without providing a specific deadline.
A day of mourning was declared on April 19 for those killed in Russian missile strikes on the city of Dnipro and its surroundings in Ukraine's southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk as Ukraine's air force for the first time said it had downed one of Russia's attacking strategic bombers.
At least eight people were killed and 25 were wounded when Russian warplanes fired missiles at targets in the Dnipropetrovsk region -- the country's industrial heartland.
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Residential Building Burns After Deadly Russian Attacks On Dnipropetrovsk
Two people were killed in Dnipro, a city of 1 million that is also the region's capital, and six in the Synelnykivskiy district, some 60 kilometers south of Dnipro, where more than a dozen homes were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Serhiy Lysak, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram that 24 people were wounded and residential buildings and infrastructure facilities were also damaged in the city.
Dnipro Mayor Boris Filatov declared April 20 a day of mourning in the region.
A third location in Dnipropetrovsk, Zelenskiy's hometown of Kriviy Rih, was targeted by a separate Russian attack that damaged infrastructure and wounded three people, according to Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul, who said the strike on infrastructure caused a fire.
Following the strikes, Ukraine's air force said it destroyed a Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber.
"This is retaliation for the fact that the Russian strategic aircraft attacked our peaceful cities today, where civilians were killed," air force spokesman Ilya Yevlash told RFE/RL.
"This is the first time that our air force together with our partners from the [military intelligence] and other defense forces were able to shoot down a Tu-22M3 strategic aviation aircraft. And for the first time, two Kh-22 missiles fired by this aircraft were also shot down. Of course, it's a combo. Today is a rainy day in the Russian propaganda media," Yevlash said.
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Ukraine Says It Shot Down Russian Strategic Bomber
Yevlash later added that a second Tu-22M3 was forced to turn around before it had time to launch its missiles, without providing details.
The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified.
Russia's Defense Ministry said a Tu-22 had crashed in the southern region of Stavropol due to a technical malfunction while returning to base from a combat mission.
Stavropol regional chief Vladimir Vladimirov said one of the four members of the crew had died, while rescue services were searching for one that was missing. Two other members were found alive, Vladimirov said.
"Russia must be held accountable for its terror, and all missiles and 'Shahed' drones must be intercepted," Zelenskiy wrote on X.
"The world can ensure this, and our partners possess the necessary capabilities. This has been demonstrated in the skies over the Middle East, and it should also work in Europe," Zelenskiy said in an apparent reference to a massive Iranian drone attack on Israel last week that was virtually completely repelled in a joint effort by Israeli, U.S., French, British, and Jordanian air defenses.