Ukraine's recent military victories against the Russian invaders have been "extraordinary" and influenced the course of the war despite the "malice and cruelty" of Moscow's latest missile strikes, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has told a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Austin was speaking to the Ukraine Contact Group, a gathering of the more than 50 countries on the sidelines of a NATO defense ministers meeting on October 12 to discuss bolstering Ukraine's air defenses amid continuing Russian missile attacks across the country, including the capital, Kyiv.
On October 12, the attacks continued, with at least seven people killed and eight wounded in a Russian strike on a crowded market in the town of Avdiyivka, the governor of the eastern Donetsk region said.
"The Russians struck the central market where many people were at that time," Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a statement, adding that there was "no military logic" for such an attack.
Austin said Russia's actions had further united the international community to support Ukraine's military efforts to defend itself.
"The whole world has just seen yet again the malice and cruelty of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's war of choice -- rooted in aggression, and waged with deep contempt for the rules of war," he said.
"Ukraine has made extraordinary gains on the battlefield," Austin said.
"Despite Putin's new assaults, Ukrainian forces have changed the dynamics of this war. They've liberated hundreds of towns from Russian occupation. And they've retaken thousands of square kilometers of their land," he said, but added that Western support remained critical.
"The Contact Group's security assistance, training, and sustainment efforts have been vital," Austin said.
Speaking ahead of the meeting in Brussels, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on October 12 that providing Ukraine with more air defenses was the "top priority" of the meeting, which will also be attended by representatives from other countries.
"We will address how to ramp up support for Ukraine and the top priority will be more air defense for Ukraine," Stoltenberg said at the start of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on October 11 urged a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) to block Russia's energy sector with further sanctions to disrupt Russian revenues from oil and gas and asked for more air defense capabilities to neutralize aerial attacks, saying that when Ukraine receives such systems, "the key element of Russia’s terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work."
"Russia must be completely isolated and punished. Punished both politically and in terms of sanctions," he said.
"Such steps can bring peace closer -- they will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war," Zelenskiy told the leaders of the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy.
U.S. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, said he did not believe Moscow would use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine despite recent thinly veiled threats to employ his atomic arsenal.
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In recent weeks, Russia moved to seize four partially occupied regions of Ukraine after referendums widely denounced as illegal, mobilized hundreds of thousands of Russians, and repeatedly alluded to the use of nuclear arms, stoking alarm in the West.
Biden said Putin had completely misjudged Russia's capacity to invade Ukraine, but said he believes the Russian leader is acting rationally although his objectives in Ukraine "were not rational."
"If you listen to the speech he made after when that decision was being made [to invade Ukraine], he talked about the whole idea of -- he was needed to be the leader of Russia that united all of Russian speakers," Biden said in a October 11 interview with CNN. "I just think it's irrational."
Russia launched its fresh wave of missile strikes on several regions of Ukraine a day after bombing multiple cities, including Kyiv, as a reprisal for a blast on October 8 that damaged the only bridge between Moscow-annexed Crimea and mainland Russia.
Biden last week warned that the world risks "Armageddon" in unusually direct remarks following Putin's threats to use atomic weapons amid a faltering military campaign in Ukraine.
Putin's intentions and his mental state have been the subject of much debate after the Russian military suffered a series of setbacks in Ukraine.
But Biden said that Putin was "rational" despite the mistakes he has made.
"I think [Putin] is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly," Biden said.
In reaction, the Kremlin said on October 12 that rhetoric from Western leaders on the potential use of nuclear weapons was harmful and provocative.
"We express our daily regret that Western heads of state engage in nuclear rhetoric every day," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that such a practice was "provocative."
Peskov also denied that more men were being drafted into the army, despite some regional officials reporting they were stepping up mobilization efforts this week.
"There is no new wave," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, telling reporters to check with individual governors to see what they meant.
SEE ALSO: Not Going Nuclear: Putin's Other Options For Escalation With The WestThe G7 leaders in a statement condemned Russia's recent missile attacks and said they would hold Putin and those responsible to account but did not say how.
The White House later pledged to speed up shipments of air defenses to Ukraine, while Germany promised delivery to Ukraine "in the coming days" of the first of four IRIS-T SLM air defense systems capable of protecting a city.
Zelenskiy thanked all the countries that have already helped Ukraine secure its air defense systems, particularly the United States and Germany, but said according to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia has ordered 2,400 drones from Iran.
In addition, Zelenskiy asked the G7 countries to back his initiative for an international observer mission on Ukraine's border with Belarus to monitor the security situation.