Closing summary...
One of Ukraine’s top generals said that his forces were advancing in the south. “In the Tavria sector, there has been an advance by the defence forces,” General Oleksander Tarnavskyi said in a post on Telegram.
US President, Joe Biden, spoke with US allies and partners to coordinate future support for Ukraine. Poland’s president Andrzej Duda said afterward that Biden had assured the group of continued US support for Ukraine and of his strong conviction that Congress will not walk away.
Western military powers are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine to repel Russian attacks, the UK and Nato have warned.
The Belarusian defence ministry said it had started exercises to check its armed forces’ combat readiness, Reuters reported.
Kyiv’s attempts to penetrate Russian defences on frontlines in the east and south of the country have “failed”, Moscow said.
The UK’s defence minister, James Heappey, has hailed “the functional defeat” of Russia in the Black Sea over past weeks, saying the “Russian navy has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine”.
Kyiv has been told it is “absolutely possible” that EU membership talks could begin this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after a surprise meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Ukrainian capital.
Updated
We have some more details on the call Joe Biden had with western allies earlier (see post at 16:13).
The office of the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Biden was “keen to reassure the allies about the continuing American support for Ukraine, also after the recent decisions of the US Congress.”
The Nato leader, Jens Stoltenberg, said the call was “good” while EU chief Charles Michel said the allies “stand united”.
Updated
