Nearly 50 defence leaders from around the world have met and agreed to send more advanced weapons to Ukraine, including a Harpoon launcher and missiles to protect its coast.
It came as a veteran Russian diplomat condemned his country's invasion and Moscow's Foreign Minister said Russia would develop closer economic ties with China.
United States Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday told reporters that some 20 members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group had announced they would send new packages of security assistance to Ukraine, as the nation's war with Russia reached the three-month mark.
Mr Austin said Denmark had agreed to send a Harpoon launcher and missiles to Ukraine to help it defend its coast.
He declined to say if the US would send Ukraine high-tech mobile rocket launchers it had requested.
Russia has ships in the Black Sea and has used them to launch cruise missiles into Ukraine.
The Russian ships have also stopped all commercial ship traffic from entering Ukraine ports.
Tom Karako, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the Harpoon missiles, made by Boeing, would be able to help Ukraine threaten high-value Russian ships attacking Ukraine.
Mr Austin noted the aid was making a difference.
He said Canada and Australia committed to providing M-777 howitzers to Ukraine during the first meeting and four weeks later the systems were delivered.
"We've gained a sharper, shared sense of Ukraine's priority requirements and the situation on the battlefield," Mr Austin told reporters at the close of the virtual meeting with the defence leaders.
"Many countries are donating critically needed artillery ammunition, coastal defence systems and tanks and other armoured vehicles. Others came forward with new commitments for training."
The US and other countries have been training Ukrainian forces in nearby European countries.
Mr Austin added that the Czech Republic recently donated attack helicopters, tanks and rockets, and that Italy, Greece, Norway and Poland announced new donations of artillery systems and ammunition on Monday.
"The nature of the fight, as you've heard us describe a number of times is … really shaped by artillery in this phase," he said.
"And we've seen serious exchanges of artillery fires over the last several weeks."
Mr Austin said that during the virtual meeting, Ukrainian officials made clear their security needs.
He said those were consistent with what had been identified in recent weeks — long-range artillery and rocket systems, armoured personnel carriers and drones.
Russian diplomat condemns Putin's 'aggressive war'
Russia's three-month-long invasion, the biggest attack on a European state since 1945, has seen more than 6.5 million people flee abroad, turned entire cities into rubble, and prompted the unprecedented imposition of Western sanctions on Russia.
A veteran Russian diplomat in Geneva says he handed in his resignation before sending out a scathing letter to foreign colleagues inveighing against the "aggressive war unleashed" by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
Boris Bondarev, 41, confirmed his resignation in a letter on Monday after a diplomatic official passed on his English-language statement to The Associated Press.
"For 20 years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year," he wrote, alluding to the date of Russia's invasion.
Reached by phone, Mr Bondarev – a diplomatic counsellor who has focused on Russia's role in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva after postings in places like Cambodia and Mongolia – confirmed he handed in his resignation in a letter addressed to ambassador Gennady Gatilov.
"Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred," he said, telling the Associated Press he had no plans to leave Geneva.
'Our economic ties with China will grow even faster'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told global business leaders in Davos on Monday the world must increase sanctions against Russia to deter other countries from using "brute force" to achieve their aims.
The European Union (EU) will likely agree on an embargo on Russian oil imports "within days", its biggest member Germany has said, as Moscow said its economic ties with China would grow amid its isolation by the West over the Ukraine conflict.
Many of the EU's 27 member states are heavily reliant on Russian energy, and Kyiv has criticised the bloc for not moving quickly enough to halt supplies.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin would focus on developing ties with China as economic links with the United States and Europe were cut.
"If they (the West) want to offer something in terms of resuming relations, then we will seriously consider whether we will need it or not," he said in a speech, according to a transcript on the foreign ministry's website.
"Now that the West has taken a 'dictator's position', our economic ties with China will grow even faster."
AP/Reuters
