Russian president visits United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for talks. This live blog is closed

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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainians on Wednesday that Kyiv would defeat Russia and win a fair peace “against all odds” as the future of vital US military and financial aid hung in the balance.

Zelenskiy delivered his defiant message in an unusual early-morning video that showed him walking through Kyiv on his way to pay his respects to fallen soldiers on what Ukraine marks as Armed Forces Day, Reuters reported.

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Associated Press have provided a little more detail of the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s earlier comments in which he said Moscow saw no signs that Kyiv was ready to move towards a political resolution.

Speaking at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference in North Macedonia, Lavrov also said Russia was not prepared to “review its goals” in Ukraine.

Russian authorities are attempting to quell dissent from the wives of soldiers deployed in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. The MoD said in its daily intelligence briefing that some were being paid off while others have been discredited online.

Ukraine has become progressively stronger over the past year and will soon be able to reopen Kyiv’s international airport, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said.

Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by nearly 170,000, as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its 22nd month.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine needs to improve its mobilisation system, with the issue of recruitment under public discussion for some time. Questions of corruption in the military, particularly in procurement and recruiting, have periodically seized public attention as Ukraine tries to press on with a counteroffensive that has so far produced only incremental gains.

UN says expects real toll to be significantly higher than official tally; Germany to send IRIS-T air defence unit, defence minister Boris Pistorius says. This live blog is closed

• What we know on day 636 of the invasion

Russia cannot coexist with the current “regime” in Kyiv but Moscow can resist the might of Nato for as long as it needs to fully demilitarise Ukraine, a senior Russian diplomat said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

“The current regime [in Kyiv] is absolutely toxic, we do not see any options for coexistence with it at the moment,” Russian ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik told reporters in Moscow.

Russia withdraws from treaty of conventional armed forces in Europe, which was aimed at preventing cold war rivals from massing forces at borders

• What we know on day 622

A Russian ship was “almost certainly” damaged after being struck in Crimea, says the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

In a defence intelligence update, the MoD said a newly built Russian naval corvette was damaged on 4 November, which was earlier reported by Ukrainian and Russian sources.

Bomb in birthday present kills Ukrainian major who advised commander-in-chief; Russian attack damages Odesa museum; Ukraine grain exports fall

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A close military adviser to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s army has been killed after a booby-trapped birthday present he was given exploded. “Under tragic circumstances, my assistant and close friend, Major Gennadiy Chastiakov, was killed … on his birthday,” Gen Valery Zaluzhny wrote online. Chastiakov leaves a wife and four children, he said.

Zaluzhny said Chastiakov had been “fully devoting his life to the armed forces of Ukraine and the fight against Russian aggression”. Attacks targeting Ukrainian officials have been relatively rare since Moscow invaded. There have been attacks on Russian nationalists, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine. In April, a blast from a statuette rigged with explosives killed the 40-year-old pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the deaths of at least 19 soldiers in a Russian missile strike on a military ceremony was a “tragedy that could’ve been avoided”. Other reports suggest the death toll could be much higher, while defence chiefs are under pressure over the staging of the event in a frontline village vulnerable to attack.

Zelenskiy has said it is irresponsible to talk of holding an election in Ukraine in wartime and called for unity to avoid pointless political discussions. “We need to recognise that this is a time for defence, a time for battle, upon which the fate of the state and its people depend … I believe that elections are not appropriate at this time.” Elections are banned under martial law in force in Ukraine, but Zelenskiy had been considering whether to invoke special provisions to stage them. He has said he would like to run for a second term if a vote took place.

In the US, some senate Republicans have released a sweeping set of US border security proposals as a condition for sending more aid to Ukraine, laying out a draft plan that includes resuming construction on parts of the Mexico border wall.

Vladimir Putin has decided to run in the March presidential election, a move that would keep him in power until least 2030, as he is said to feel he must steer Russia through its most perilous period in decades, sources told Reuters.

Radio Free Europe has said that it believes Russia may have taken one of its journalists “hostage” for a potential prisoner swap with the US and is appealing to Moscow not to treat her cruelly, the broadcaster’s acting president said.

Several dozen owners of transport companies blocked three major Polish border crossings with Ukraine in protest at what they say is unfair competition from its businesses.

Ukraine’s grain exports have fallen by almost a third compared with last year, agriculture ministry data shows, to 9.8m tonnes so far in the July 2023-June 2024 season. The ministry said that by this point last year, Ukraine had exported 14.3m tonnes.

Odesa’s national art museum said seven exhibitions, most featuring the work of contemporary Ukrainian artists, were damaged by a Russian strike that left a large crater outside the museum, which is celebrating its 124th anniversary. Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar, said Kyiv was “deeply outraged” by the attack and urged the UN’s Paris-based heritage agency, Unesco, to condemn it.

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AFP has just posted a report from near the war-battered town of Bakhmut – which Ukraine is attempting to retake – quoting a Ukrainian soldier with a grim assessment of the conflict.

“I’ve been saying that for some time now already. Step by step we’re losing the war,” the serviceman, who uses the call sign “Mudryi” (Wise), told AFP. “The longer this static war continues, the worse it is for us.”

Claims drone strike or debris from downed drone has caused fire in oil refinery near Black Sea in Russia

Once a week, Ukrainian parents bring their children to a community centre in Kyiv for canine therapy.

Beijing Xiangshan Forum, China’s biggest annual show of military diplomacy, started on Sunday, but the name of Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, initially listed in the forum’s agenda as the first guest speaker at tomorrow’s opening ceremony, was not on the agenda.