Russian forces are attacking eastern city of Avdiivka with ‘everything they have’, says head of its military administration; Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanks troops for holding the line

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

Fierce fighting in Avdiivka on the eastern frontline entered a fifth day as Russia continued to deploy new forces in an attempt to surround the city, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of its military administration. Shelling was so fierce that emergency crews were unable to recover the dead from wrecked buildings, Barabash said. Both Russia and the United States have described the upsurge in violence around Avdiivka as a new Russian offensive. “They are striking with everything they have. Bouts of shooting, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, mortars and a lot of aircraft,” Barabash told national television. He said 1,620 residents remained in Avdiivka, a town with a large coking plant and a pre-war population of 32,000.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked troops in areas where fighting was “particularly hot”. In his regular address he said: “I thank everyone who is holding their positions and destroying Russian troops”, citing Avdiivka, Maryinka and other key locations in the Donetsk region.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea near the southern resort city of Sochi on Saturday morning. The city’s mayor, Alexei Kopaigorodskyi, said there had been no casualties or damage and that the situation was under control.

A top Ukraine general said fighting in the north-east had “significantly worsened” as daily Russian attacks continued.

Protesters gathered outside city hall in Odesa again to speak out against the misuse of budget funds and pay tribute to Ukrainian soldiers killed or injured in the war.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet is highly likely to have reinforced its defensive and reactive posture since suffering a series of strikes in August and September, the UK Ministry of Defence said. In its latest intelligence update, the ministry said the BSF has relocated many of its prestige assets – including cruise missile-capable ships and submarines – from Sevastopol to operating and basing areas further east, such as Novorossiysk.

Russia has detained three lawyers of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and raided their homes, aides said, a step that comes as pressure on the Kremlin’s critics increases. The move was an attempt to “completely isolate Navalny”, his ally Ivan Zhdanov said on social media.

Fighting on the eastern front is ‘a new Russian offensive’

See all our Ukraine war coverage

Fighting in Avdiivka on the eastern frontline enters a fifth day, as Russia continues to deploy new forces in an attempt to surround the city, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of its military administration.

Russia’s defence ministry says its forces shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea near the southern resort city of Sochi on Saturday morning. The city’s mayor, Alexei Kopaigorodskyi, said there had been no casualties or damage and that the situation was under control.

A top Ukraine general said fighting in the north-east had “significantly worsened” as daily Russian attacks continued.

Russia has detained three lawyers of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and raided their homes, aides said, a step that comes as pressure on the Kremlin’s critics increases. The move was an attempt to “completely isolate Navalny”, his ally Ivan Zhdanov said on social media.

The US has claimed North Korea delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia for the war in Ukraine. The White House national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US believed Kim Jong-un was seeking sophisticated Russian weapon technologies in return for munitions to boost North Korea’s nuclear programme.

Vladimir Putin dismissed the idea that Russia damaged a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia and suggested such claims were made up to divert attention from what he said was a western attack on Nord Stream.

EU leaders meeting later in October will demand “decisive progress” on using Russian assets frozen by sanctions to help Ukraine, according to their draft statement.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, while visiting the Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday, vowed to improve Ukraine’s air defences and to increase the security of a “humanitarian corridor” for grain exports.

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

Russian forces have continued to pummel the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka from the ground and air on Friday, the fourth day of intense fighting in the biggest offensive by Russian forces in months, Reuters reports.

Ukraine said its forces were holding their ground but Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiivka’s military administration, said the town was under constant attack from air, artillery and large numbers of troops.

The battles have been going on for four days now. Fierce and really non-stop … They are firing from everything they have available.

It was a very hot night in Avdiivka. There were several airstrikes on the city itself … the attacks do not stop day or night.

Russia and Ukraine fighting fierce battles around eastern town of Avdiivka; Finland says ‘state actor’ may be behind damage to gas pipeline

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

Russian and Ukrainian forces fought fierce battles around the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka after Moscow launched one of its biggest military offensives in months this week. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground on the third day of battle, but municipal officials said the Russian attacks were relentless.

Finland said it could not exclude the possibility that a “state actor” was behind damage to a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, amid what its national security intelligence service called “significantly deteriorated” relations with Russia. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday the US would support Finland and Estonia as they probed the damage to the Balticconnector pipeline and parallel Estlink telecommunications cable between the two countries.

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for recognising regional organisations from four territories annexed from Ukraine. Russia’s National Olympic Committee denounced the decision, calling it counterproductive and politically motivated.

Ukraine claims it has thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian saboteur group to cross its north-eastern border in the Sumy region, Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the armed forces of Ukraine, said on Thursday. “The saboteurs tried to cross the state border of Ukraine and intended to move further towards one of the civilian critical infrastructure facilities,” he wrote on Telegram. The eight-member group was repelled by Ukrainian fire, he said.

Russia expects its military and defence cooperation with Kyrgyzstan to expand, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin said during a visit to a Russian airbase near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in his first trip outside Russia since the international criminal court issued a warrant for his arrest over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the possible poisoning of an exiled Russian journalist who staged a high-profile protest against the war in Ukraine. Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up a placard reading “Stop the war” on Russian television last year, became unwell after opening the door to her apartment in Paris and finding a powdered substance, AFP reported.

The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on Thursday recognised the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin a “genocide”. The text on the 1932-33 “Holodomor” was voted through almost unanimously with 73 votes in favour and one against at the meeting in Strasbourg, which followed a similar resolution approved by the European Parliament in December.

Romanian authorities said Thursday they had found a crater from a suspected drone that may have exploded on impact on its territory near the border with Ukraine, reviving concerns about possible spillover of Russia’s war in Ukraine on to a Nato member country.

US military officials displayed what they said were pieces of Iranian drones recovered in Ukraine to UN member states on Thursday – evidence, according to the Pentagon, of growing ties between Iran and Russia. Tehran has denied western accusations that it is supplying Russia with large quantities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), some armed, to use in its invasion of Ukraine.

The UN human rights council on Thursday extended the mandate of its rapporteur on rights violations in Russia by a year, in a second diplomatic defeat for Moscow in three days. The UN’s top rights body adopted a resolution brought by several European countries to prolong Bulgarian human rights expert Mariana Katzarova for another year by 18 votes to seven.

Journalist Khaybar Akifi was severely wounded in a drone attack that also killed his four-year-old daughter and his wife’s parents in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, several media officials said. The head of state television channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, said Akifi was in a coma.