Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s assault in Donbas ‘flounders’ as EU vows to stand by Kyiv

The EU will stand by Ukraine for as “long as it takes,” Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said.

Ms von der Leyen made the comment while on her sixth wartime visit to Kyiv, where she was due to hold talks with president Volodymyr Zelensky.

The pair were expected to discuss progress on Ukraine joining the bloc.

“I’m here to discuss Ukraine’s accession path to the EU. The EU’s financial support to rebuild Ukraine as a modern, prosperous democracy, ” she wrote on X.

“Of course the enlargement topic will be at the top of the agenda but also our financial and military support,” she later told reporters.

“The most important message is reassuring that we stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

A large-scale Russian assault on a town in the Donbas region has “floundered” after coming up against “strong” Ukrainian defence, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said.

The MoD said the Kremlin has lost around 200 armoured vehicles during its attacks on Avdiika over the past three weeks.

“In the south, the Ukrainian advance remains relatively static between the two main lines of Russia’s well prepared defensive positions,” the MoD said in a statement.

“Around the Donbas town of Avdiivka, a large-scale Russian assault has floundered on strong Ukrainian defences.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Kyiv on Saturday ahead of a report the European Union is expected to present next week about Ukraine’s progress in its membership bid, a Ukrainian lawmaker said.

Parliamentary deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak said on his Telegram channel that von der Leyen was expected to speak in the Ukrainian parliament.

The EU assessment due on Wednesday is expected to detail how far Ukraine has advanced in fulfilling various economic, legal, and other criteria to clear the way for accession talks to be launched in December.

Ukraine, which applied to join the European Union days after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, sees joining the trade bloc as a top priority.

The EU’s 27 members are due at a summit in December to decide whether to allow Kyiv to begin accession negotiations, a move requiring the unanimous backing of all the bloc’s members.

Ukraine’s defence ministry says it will relax testing processes for home-produced weapons, allowing them to reach the front faster, the Kyiv Independent reports.

Requirements such as a six-month minimum climatisation test are unnecessary in times of war, the ministry said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine is prioritising domestic arms manufacturing, and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says more than 200 Ukrainian companies have begun developing drones.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni told Russian pranksters posing as African diplomats that there is “a lot of fatigue” over the war in Ukraine.

In a 13-minute recording released by pranksters “Vova and Lexus”, Ms Meloni claimed that Kyiv’s counteroffensive “didn’t change the destiny of the conflict” and that the time is approaching when Europe will “need a way out”.

The Italian PM believed she was speaking to senior African Union officials in the call on 18 September, a day before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, but her office later admitted that she “had been deceived”.

They also confirmed the authenticity of the audio published by Vova and Lexus, whose real names are Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, on Wednesday.

The Independent has not been able to verify claims of the battlefield casualties.

Kyiv claimed that in addition to the casualties, 43 armoured vehicles, 42 artillery systems, 18 of Russia’s tanks and one aircraft had also been damaged in the same period.

The artillery shells were sent to Russia through ships and other transport means since early August, said lawmaker Yoo Sang-bum, citing an intelligence briefing.

The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), which held the briefing, also believes the Kim Jong-un regime is operating its munitions factories at full capacity to meet Moscow’s arms demands.

The hermit kingdom is also mobilising its citizens to increase production, the South Korean lawmaker said.

Around 174,000sq km of Ukraine, making up about a third of its territory, has been potentially strewn with mines or dangerous war detritus, estimates from Kyiv officials showed.

The 571 injuries have occurred in more than 560 incidents that involve mines or explosive objects left behind in the fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops, the country’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said on its official Telegram channel on Wednesday.

Almost a quarter of these incidents have happened in fields, the military official said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday that her chief diplomatic adviser had resigned, carrying the can for a prank call fiasco that led to the release of unfiltered remarks on Ukraine and migration.

“This matter was not handled well, we are all sorry, Ambassador (Francesco) Talo took responsibility for it,” Meloni said, announcing that her aide had quit.

Talo, a 65-year-old career diplomat who previously served as Italian ambassador to NATO and Israel and as envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was due to retire by the end of the year.

Meloni’s office confirmed on Wednesday that she had a phone conversation with a Russian comedian who successfully posed as a high-ranking African Union official.

During the English-language call which took place in September but was released online only this week, Meloni spoke of international “fatigue” with the war in Ukraine and complained that Italy had little support from European partners in dealing with migration.

On Friday, she said she had “a doubt” about her interlocutor but “no certainty” that he was an impostor, and blamed her diplomatic staff for not properly screening the caller.