EU president says Ukraine has unconditional support ahead of summit; Russian strike kills three people in a residential district of eastern Ukraine

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said ahead of an EU-Ukraine summit next week that Ukraine had unconditional support from the bloc and needed to prevail against Russian attacks to defend European values. “We stand by Ukraine’s side without any ifs and buts. Ukraine is fighting for our shared values, it is fighting for the respect of international law and for the principles of democracy and that is why Ukraine has to win this war.”

A Russian strike killed three people in a residential district of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka on Saturday, the regional governor said. Fourteen other people were wounded in the attack, which also damaged four apartment buildings and a hotel. According to Ukraine’s defence ministry, Russia carried out attacks on Konstantynivka with multiple rocket launchers.

Russia accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately striking a hospital in a Russian-held area of eastern Ukraine on Saturday. It said a strike killed 14 people and wounded 24 patients and medical staff. The strike hit a hospital in the Russian-held settlement of Novoaidar and was carried out using a US-supplied Himars rocket launch system, the Russian defence ministry said. The claims could not be independently verified, AP reported.

Kyiv and its western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on the possibility of equipping Ukraine with long-range missiles and military aircraft, a top aide to Ukraine’s president says, AP reported. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine’s supporters in the west “understand how the war is developing” and the need to supply planes capable of providing cover for the armoured fighting vehicles that the United States and Germany have pledged.

Ukraine said on Friday it would take its pilots about half a year to train for combat in western fighter jets such as US F-16s, as Kyiv steps up its campaign to secure fourth-generation warplanes. Ukraine got a huge boost this week when Germany and the United States announced plans to provide heavy tanks to Kyiv, which is now hoping the west will also provide long-range missiles and fighter jets.

North Korea on Saturday denounced US pledges of battle tanks, claiming Washington was “further crossing the red line” to win hegemony by proxy war, Reuters quoted state media KCNA reporting. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, made the remarks in a statement, saying that North Korea will “stand in the same trench” as Russia against the United States.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, will hold a meeting with Lynne Tracy, the new US ambassador to Moscow, early next week, the RIA news agency reported.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday redoubled his efforts to stop Russian athletes participating the 2024 Olympics, saying they would try to justify the war against Ukraine if allowed to compete. Zelenskiy said on Friday that Ukraine would launch an international campaign to keep Russia out of the summer games, which will be held in Paris. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Friday that any attempt to squeeze Moscow out of international sport because of what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine was “doomed to fail”.

Towns and villages in east and south hit by new barrage; Ukraine claims to have killed 109 Russians in eastern Donetsk battle. This live blog is closed

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance

Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European Union’s European external action service, has defended German and US provisions of military equipment to Ukraine, and criticised Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for waging a war on Nato and the west.

Associated Press report that Sannino, speaking at a news conference in Tokyo as part of an Asia-Pacific tour, said Putin had “moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against Nato and the west.”

Top general says 47 of 55 Russian missiles were shot down; US move allows for wider sanctions against mercenary group. This live blog is closed

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance

The Ukrainian defence force has just posted this warning to Telegram:

“Rockets in the direction of Vinnytsia and Kyiv region. Can change the trajectory. Stay in shelters. We believe in air defense.”

General Valery Zaluzhny says Ukraine successfully downed 47 of the 55 missiles launched by Russia following west’s offer of tanks

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukraine’s top general vowed that his country would not be “broken” after the successful downing of 47 of the 55 missiles launched by Russia in a mass attack that followed the western offer of tanks.

General Valery Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, said 20 of those intercepted had been heading to the Kyiv region, where one 55-year-old man was killed and two injured by falling fragments.

It is claimed 6,543 Russian personnel have surrendered since the hotline launched in September 2022

More than 6,500 Russian military personnel have sought to surrender through a bespoke “I want to live” hotline, Ukraine’s government has claimed, with the call centre said to have been recently moved to a secret location to avoid Moscow interference.

Vitaly Matvienko, spokesperson at the department for prisoners of war, said those who had made contact through the service had been verified as serving in the Russian forces using their personal data and service number.

Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, according to reports; Ukraine government sees wave of resignations

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The United States appears poised to start a process that would eventually send dozens of its M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, US media reported, in a reversal that could have significant implications for Kyiv’s efforts to repel Russian forces.

The move follows reports on Tuesday that Berlin has succumbed to huge international and domestic pressure and was set to announce that it will send German-manufactured tanks to Ukraine, and allow other countries to do the same.

The decision is expected to be made officially on Wednesday and Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is due to be questioned in the Bundestag in the morning in a debate likely to be dominated by the tank decision.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident the alliance will find a solution soon, after meeting Germany’s defence minister. “At this pivotal moment in the war, we must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Kyiv needed allies to decide on whether they would deliver modern tanks to strengthen the country’s defence against Russia. Zelenskiy said the issue was not about five, 10 or 15 tanks, as Ukraine’s needs are greater, but about reaching final decisions on real deliveries. “When the needed weighty decisions are made, we will be happy to thank you for each weighty decision,” Zelenskiy said.

In Ukraine, fifteen senior officials have left their posts since Saturday, six of whom have had corruption allegations levelled at them by journalists and Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities. The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Tuesday he had asked Zelenskiy on Monday to relieve him of his duties as part of the wave of government resignations and dismissals.

Deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for supplying troops with food and equipment, also resigned, citing “media accusations” of corruption that he and the ministry say are baseless. Deputy prosecutor general Oleksiy Symonenko has been removed from his post, and two deputy ministers resigned from Ukraine’s ministry of communities and territories development.

Five regional governors are also being removed from power: Valentyn Reznichenko, of Dnipropetrovsk, Oleksandra Starukha of Zaporizhzhia, Oleksiy Kuleba of Kyiv, Dymtro Zhivytskyi, of Sumy and Yaroslav Yanushevich, of Kherson. Kherson and Zaporizhizhia are two of the regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation has claimed to annex.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock, intended to illustrate existential risks to the world, at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has ever been since it was first introduced in 1947. It is “largely” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they said.

Ukraine has enough coal and gas reserves for the remaining months of winter despite repeated Russian attacks on its energy system, prime minister Denys Shmyhal has said.

Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto has signalled a possible pause in discussions with Turkey over Finnish ambitions to join Nato alongside Sweden, which he says is due to the pressure of Turkey’s forthcoming election.

Supporters of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gathered for a protest in Berlin on Tuesday to highlight the prison conditions in Russia he is being kept in.

Russia does not plan to rebuild the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol which were the site of heavy bombardment in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Russian football officials met their counterparts at Uefa on Tuesday as they tried to negotiate Russia’s return to international football in Europe. It has been banned by Uefa and Fifa since the invasion of Ukraine.