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.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.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."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.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."