Support for Ukraine more urgent

Russia’s deadliest missile strike this year, which killed 51 people and injured 300 in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava on Tuesday, underlines the absolute imperative the Western democracies have to act swiftly to provide Kyiv with the weapons it needs to defend itself against such onslaughts.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s desperate cri de coeur as Moscow’s missiles rained down on an undefended hospital and a nearby military training institute in Poltava must be heeded. Otherwise the recent strategic gains his forces have made by advancing deep inside Russia’s Kursk region will be lost.

As Mr Zelensky said as the full extent of the Russian bombardment of Poltava became clear: “Air defence systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse. Long-range strikes that can defend (Ukraine) against Russian terror are needed now, not sometime later. Every day of delay means more lives lost.”

Two-and-a-half years into the conflict that Russian President Vladimir Putin thought would be over in just a few days, and with the northern hemisphere winter imminent, Western nations, led by the US, must ensure that Ukraine gets all the weapons it needs to reverse attacks such as those that targeted Poltava and, the day before, Kyiv, where clearly civilian targets came under massive bombardment.

The course of the war and prospects for what Mr Zelensky terms “forcing Russia into peace (talks)” depend in no small measure on the Russian tyrant’s response to the Kursk incursion and the dramatic uptick in Moscow’s counter-attacks that have included the heavy bombardment of Poltava. Putin’s crucial counteroffensive targeting Poltava also justifies Ukraine’s fury over the Russian despot’s unhindered ceremonial arrival in Mongolia on Monday in defiance of the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court. The Western democracies must not be similarly hopeless in answering Mr Zelensky’s urgent calls for help with the weapons he so desperately needs.