Closing summary
Ukraine has set up a joint defence venture with German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall AG to service and repair western weapons sent to help Kyiv against Russia’s full-scale invasion, officials said.
Ukraine expects Germany to provide it with an additional €1.4bn to enhance its air defences and help it get through a second winter at war with Russia, Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said.
The EU is on track towards its goal of ending its reliance on Russian fossil fuels within this decade, the European Commission said.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, vowed to maintain military pressure on Russian-occupied Crimea. “We have not yet gained full fire control over Crimea and surrounding waters, but we will,” Zelenskiy told a meeting of the Crimea Platform, a diplomatic initiative he launched in 2021. “This is a question of time.”
Two people died and others were injured in Russian shelling of Kherson, the local governor claimed.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, in Tehran earlier.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has pledged to maintain Germany’s aid to Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion even as Berlin supports Israel in its conflict with Hamas.
Speaking at a German-Ukrainian business forum in Berlin, attended by the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, and joined virtually by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Scholz vowed Kyiv would have assistance “as long as necessary”.
“We are backing Ukraine economically, financially, with humanitarian aid and also with weapons,” Scholz said.
“This support will in no way be impacted by the fact that we of course since the horrible morning hours of 7 October have focused on Israel and the Middle East with the greatest sympathy and concern.”
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