Ukraine news – live: Russia ‘unlikely to break through’ in key Donetsk battleground

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has sent his condolences to the wife of his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei, whose “sudden” death at the age of 64 was announced yesterday by state media, without further explanation.

Moscow’s foreign ministry said its leadership and staff “deeply mourn” the “untimely death” of Makei, who it labelled “an outstanding diplomat and statesman” and “a true patriot who devoted his life to serving his Motherland and protecting its interests in the international arena”.

The ministry called Makei – a close ally of president Alexander Lukashenko – “a true friend of Russia, who made a unique contribution to the comprehensive development of broad bilateral cooperation … and the strengthening of ties between the fraternal peoples of Russia and Belarus”.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Belgium’s prime minister Alexander De Croo have signed a joint declaration of support for Ukraine to join the European Union and Nato, during the latter’s visit to Kyiv yesterday.

“I thank Belgium and the prime minister for the joint declaration signed today. This document testifies Belgium’s support for our movement towards full membership in the European Union and Nato. We will definitely get this important result for us,” the Ukrainian president said.

Nato is struggling to arm Ukraine and simultaneously keep its own stocks replenished as Kyiv and Moscow use weapons and ammunition at a rate not seen since the Second World War, a report claims.

With the western alliance left unprepared for a land war in Europe, it now finds itself scrambling to provide Kyiv with increasingly scarce Soviet-era missiles, tanks and artillery shells – a dilemma prompting discussions about investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to restart the manufacturing of certain ammunitions, according to the New York Times.

While Nato forces fired maybe 300 artillery rounds each day in Afghanistan, the alliance’s recently departed assistant secretary general for defence investment, Camille Grand, told the paper: “A day in Ukraine is a month or more in Afghanistan.”

While the US produces 15,000 artillery rounds per month, last summer’s fighting in the Donbas region saw Ukraine fire 6,000 to 7,000 rounds each day and Russia fire 40,000 to 50,000, a senior Nato official told the paper.

As a result, the Times reported that the West is trying to come up with alternative systems, even if they are older, to substitute for shrinking stocks of expensive air-defense missiles and anti-tank Javelins, and is trying to purchase ammunition from countries like South Korea to “backfill” stocks being sent to Ukraine.

Hundreds of patients are being evacuated from a psychiatric hospital in Kherson, an aid coordinator has said, as civilians flee the newly-liberated city in the face of Russian shelling.

Emilie Fourrey, emergency project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Ukraine, said an evacuation of 400 patients at the hospital, which is situated near both an electrical plant and the front line, had begun on Thursday and was set to continue in the coming days.

Civilians were yesterday fleeing the newly liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson, in the face of Russian shelling said to have killed at least 32 people since Moscow’s forces abandoned the city.

A line of trucks, vans and cars, some towing trailers or ferrying out pets and other belongings, stretched a kilometer or more on the outskirts of the city of Kherson, the Associated Press reported.

“It is sad that we are leaving our home,” Yevhen Yankov told the news agency, as a van he was in crawled forwards slowly. “Now we are free, but we have to leave, because there is shelling, and there are dead among the population.”

Speaking from the same vehicle, Svitlana Romanivna added: “We went through real hell. Our neighborhood was burning, it was a nightmare. Everything was in flames.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of turning Ukraine’s day of remembrance for the Holodomor – a Soviet famine which killed millions – into “a day of terror”.

In his nightly video address, the Ukrainian president accused Russia of launching a missile attack on Dnipropetrovsk region – “on private houses, on ordinary houses”, adding: “There are wounded. They shelled Donetsk region, the south, and other regions.

“Russia is turning this day – the day of remembrance – into a day of terror. The occupiers will definitely be responsible for all this. And we will drive them out of our land.”

Russia will soon adopt a law barring foreigners from using Russian surrogate mothers, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament said on Sunday, the nation’s Mother’s Day.

Paid surrogacy is legal in Russia, but the practice has been criticised by religious groups as commercialising the birth of children, and Mr Volodin said some 45,000 babies born by surrogate mothers have been taken abroad in recent years, adding: “Child trafficking is unacceptable.”

“Everything must be done to protect children by prohibiting foreigners from using the surrogacy service,” Mr Volodin said on Telegram. “We will make this decision at the beginning of December.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine says Russia has forcibly deported more than 12,000 Ukrainian children since February – a charge denied by Russia, which claims the movement of people into Russia from Ukraine has been to protect civilians from Ukrainian soldiers.

Russia is unlikely to be able to concentrate sufficient high-quality forces to achieve an operational breakthrough in Ukraine’s Donetsk, where heavy fighting has taken place in the last two weeks, the UK’s ministry of defence said today.

“The area around the towns of Pavlivka and Vuhledar in south-central Donetsk Oblast has been the scene of intense combat over the last two weeks, though little territory has changed hands,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update.

It added that both Russia and Ukraine have significant forces committed to this sector, with Russian Naval Infantry having suffered heavy casualties.

“This area remains heavily contested, likely partially because Russia assesses the area has potential as a launch point for a future major advance north to capture the remainder of Ukrainian-held Donetsk Oblast,” the MoD speculated.

A spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry has said they are “shocked” by the sudden death of Belarusian foreign minister Vladimir Makei at the age of 64.

“We are shocked by the reports of the death of the Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus Vladimir Makei,” Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram, adding: “Official condolences will be published soon.”

No official explanation in Belarus has yet been given for his death.

Earlier this week, Mr Makei had attended a conference of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Yerevan, and was due to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Monday.

Ukrainian forces have repelled Russian advances in at least five settlements in the eastern territory where a majority of Moscow’s war is concentrated, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said today.

In the last 24 hours, the Ukrainian soldiers countered Russian attacks near Stelmakhivka in Luhansk oblast and Bilohorivka, Marinka, Verkhnokamianske, and Spirne in Donetsk oblast, the Ukrainian general staff said.

They added that Ukraine managed to inflict damage on two command centres, 11 concentrations of Russian military equipment and personnel, and “one other strategic site” of the Russian military over the same period.