Andrzej Duda and Jens Stoltenberg spoke via telephone on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Earlier in the day, Russia rained cruise missiles on cities across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv as well as Lviv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, among other urban centres, sowing death and destruction, news outlets reported.
By 6 p.m. local time, eleven people were confirmed dead and a further 87 injured, with rockets hitting 70 infrastructure sites, 35 residential houses, four multi-storey buildings and a school, Ukrainian officials said, as reported by the Kyiv Independent website.
Russia used 84 cruise missiles and 24 drones, including 13 Iranian Shahid-136 ones in its assault, according to Ukraine's ministry of defence, as reported by the digital broadcaster Espreso TV.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces destroyed 56 of these targets: 43 rockets and 13 drones, Espreso TV added.
The Polish president’s office tweeted: “President Andrzej Duda and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg have just held urgent consultations. The conversation focused on today’s Russian shelling of civilian targets in Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, the NATO chief said in a tweet: “Spoke with President Andrzej Duda on continued support from NATO Allies to Ukraine & thanked him for Poland's key contributions.”
He stressed: “Russia continues its unprovoked aggression against an independent sovereign nation. We will stay the course.”
Duda-Zelensky talks
Shortly beforehand, Poland’s head of state spoke on the phone with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeting afterwards that the talks focused “on the need to isolate Russia” and hold it accountable for “mass war crimes.”
Duda said he would hold more talks on these topics with world leaders later on Monday and on Tuesday.
Retaliation for Crimea bridge: Putin
Earlier on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised speech that the strikes on Ukrainian cities came in retaliation for Saturday's attack on the Kerch Strait bridge linking the illegally occupied Crimea to Russia, the Reuters news agency reported.
Putin said Russia had deployed “high-precision, long-range weapons from the air, sea and land” to deliver “massive attacks on targets of Ukraine’s energy, military command and communications facilities,” as cited by politico.eu.
He added that Russia would continue to exact retribution if Ukraine continued to strike so-called “Russian” territory, politico.eu reported.
‘Ukraine existed before this enemy appeared and Ukraine will exist after it’: Zelensky
Meanwhile, in the immediate aftermath of the Russian strikes, Ukraine’s Zelensky said in a Facebook video, apparently shot on his cell phone on the streets of Kyiv: “We are dealing with terrorists. Dozens of missiles, Iranian ‘Shaheds’ [kamikaze drones]. They have two targets.”
He added: “Energy facilities throughout the country. Kyiv region and Khmelnytskyi region, Lviv and Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy region, Kharkiv region, Zhytomyr region, Kirovohrad region, the south of the country.”
Ukraine’s president went on to say: “They want panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system. They are incorrigible. The second target is people. Such a time and such goals were specially chosen to cause as much damage as possible.”
He urged his compatriots: “Please stay in shelters today. Thanks to the help of our military, everything will be fine. Always follow the safety rules. And always remember: Ukraine existed before this enemy appeared, and Ukraine will exist after it.”
Monday is day 229 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, Reuters, kyivindependent.com, politico.eu, global.espreso.tv