TORONTO — Russian attacks on Ukraine’s natural-gas system are a deliberate bid to create a “humanitarian crisis,” Ukraine’s energy minister charged Friday as Canada pledged to speed up support for the nation’s battered heating and lighting grid.

Moscow has consistently attacked civilian energy infrastructure since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, noted Svitlana Grynchuk, the energy minister. But earlier this year it started hitting natural-gas production and other parts of the gas system, crucial to civilian homes.

“It’s not about military targets,” Grynchuk said at a news conference with Canadian cabinet ministers during a G7 ministerial conference in Toronto. “They attack directly the civilian infrastructure and they know very well what they want. They want to put Uk

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