Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in remarks on Tuesday night that his administration was planning to introduce changes as part of attempts to proceed with unusually rapid and complex negotiations to secure European Union membership, Reuters reports. Ukraine is holding “summit” talks with EU officials on Friday.

“What is very important is that we are preparing new reforms in Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said. “These are reforms which in many aspects will change the social, legal and political realities by making them more humane, more transparent and more effective.”

Zelenskiy said he was not finished shuffling the ranks of senior officials and that anyone failing to perform according to strict standards faced dismissal.

The media has been reporting in Ukraine that two high profile anti-corruption raids have been carried out on Wednesday morning, targeting oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and former interior minister Arsen Avakov.

El País is reporting that Spain will initially send between four and six Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The FT reported on Wednesday that Italy is to join forces with France in supplying air defences to Ukraine.

The US is readying more than $2bn worth of military aid for Ukraine that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time as well as other munitions and weapons, two US officials briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that longer-range rockets reportedly included in an upcoming package of military aid from the US to Ukraine would escalate the conflict but not change its course. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also told reporters that there were no plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold talks with US President Joe Biden.

Senior adviser to the Ukrainian President, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Wednesday talks were already under way on securing longer-range missiles and attack aircraft from foreign partners to help repel Russian forces.

Some western allies appear to have cooled on the idea of supplying F-16 and other fighter jets to Ukraine over the past 24 hours. Joe Biden, the US president, when asked at the White House late on Monday if his country would provide F-16s, answered simply “no”, although he emphasised on Tuesday morning he would remain in discussions with Ukraine about its weapons requests.

The UK also said supplying western jets was not practical. “These are sophisticated pieces of equipment,” a Downing St spokesperson said Tuesday. “We do not think it is practical to send those jets into Ukraine.” They added that prime minister Rishi Sunak supported accelerating support for Ukraine after completing a review that a “prolonged stalemate” in the conflict would benefit Russia.

Germany’s vice-chancellor Robert Habeck has spoken out against his country delivering fighter jets to Ukraine, saying such a move would “probably” be a step too far for western allies weighing up support for Kyiv’s cause against fears of being drawn into an outright war.

Pro-Russian forces have claimed in Russian media that Bakhmut is nearly encircled. Tass quoted Col Vitaly Kiselev on behalf of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic saying “Bakhmut has practically been ‘embraced’ from three sides, an intensive knocking out of the enemy is underway. They are trying, and I am sure that they will succeed … to go to the Chasiv Yar area, from where intensive shelling is going on back to Soledar, Bakhmut.”

Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne is reporting that the Kinburn Peninsula, a strip of land that protrudes from the southern side of Kherson oblast on the left bank of the Dnieper River, is in the “grey zone”, with neither Ukrainian or Russian military fully in control of the territory.

The British Ministry of Defence’s latest intelligence update says that recent days have seen “some of the most intense shelling of the conflict” along the Dniepr River. “This has included continued shelling of Kherson city,” the ministry notes – adding that, outside the Donbas, Kherson is the city most consistently shelled in the conflict. “Russia’s precise rationale for expending its strained ammunition stocks here is unclear. However, commanders are likely partially aiming to degrade civilian morale and to deter any Ukrainian counterattacks across the river,” the ministry adds.

Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency reported that the Novozybkov oil pumping station of the Druzhba oil pipeline in the Bryansk region of Russia came under fire from Ukraine

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, told a government meeting on Wednesday that shelling of Russian regions from Ukraine must not be permitted, and this was the task of the defence ministry.

Russian forces are preparing for a renewed attack on Ukraine imminently, most likely in the coming months, according to analysts. Citing western, Ukrainian and Russian sources, the US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War said Moscow was “preparing for an imminent offensive”, pointing to remarks by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who said there were “no signs” that Vladimir Putin was “preparing for peace”.

Military casualties on both sides in the war have totalled about 200,000, a western official has said, with a similar number killed and wounded on either side. A higher proportion of Russians had been killed, the official added, because they have been on the offensive, meaning that “they’ve suffered more fatalities than the Ukrainians on balance”.

Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen and the Green Party’s vice president of the German Bundestag Katrin Göring-Eckardt both visited Kyiv on Wednesday, Van der Bellen travelled to Bucha to pay respects at the mass grave discovered there after Russian forces retreated from occupying the city in the Kyiv region in the early stages of the war.

Ukraine should be able to join Nato as soon as the war is over, new Czech president-elect Petr Pavel said on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s grain harvest may decrease again in 2023 to 49.5m tonnes from around 51m tonnes expected in 2022, deputy economy minister Denys Kudyn said Wednesday.

Belarus’s armed forces are now in autonomous control of Russian-supplied nuclear-capable Iskander mobile guided missile systems after completing training in Russia as well as exercises in Belarus, its defence ministry has said. On Tuesday the Belarus leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has said his country is “already ready” to offer more assistance to Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Latvia will not send its athletes to the 2024 Paris Olympics if competitors from Russia and Belarus are allowed to take part while the invasion of Ukraine is ongoing, a spokesperson for the country’s Olympic committee said.

A new barrage of Russian shelling has killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, the office of Ukraine’s president has said. Regional officials said towns and villages in the east and in the south that are within reach of the Russian artillery suffered most. Six people died in the Donetsk region, two in Kherson and two in the Kharkiv region, the officials said.

A day earlier, Russian-fired missiles and self-propelled drones were reported to have hit deeper into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.

Ukrainian troops were locked in “fierce” fighting with Russian forces on Friday for control of the town of Vugledar, south-west of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Both sides claimed success in the small administrative centre, a short distance from the strategic prize of the village of Pavlivka, Agence France-Presse reported. “Soon, Vugledar may become a new, very important success for us,” Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed leader of the Donetsk region, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. But Kyiv said the town remained contested.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has described the situation on the frontline as “extremely acute”, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is stepping up its offensive. The Ukrainian president reported major battles for Vuhledar and Bakhmut, to the north-east. Local Ukrainian officials reported heavy shelling in the north, north-east and east.

Ukraine’s army claims to have killed 109 Russian soldiers and wounded another 188 in one day during fighting around Vuhledar. Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian armed forces’ eastern operational command, said the death toll was recorded on Thursday, adding: “Fierce fighting is ongoing. The enemy is indeed trying to achieve an intermediate success there, but thanks to the efforts of our defenders, they are unsuccessful.”

Poland will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine on top of the 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged, the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has told CTV News.

A total of 321 heavy tanks have been promised to Ukraine by several countries, Ukraine’s ambassador to France said on Friday. Vadym Omelchenko told French TV station BFM that “delivery terms vary for each case and we need this help as soon as possible”, while not specifying the number of tanks per country.

Belgium announced an additional €93.6m ($104.7m/£84.5m) package in military aid for Ukraine in what the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said was – including previous spending – the largest of its kind Belgium had ever given another country.

Ukraine says it is setting up drone assault companies within its armed forces that will be equipped with Starlink satellite communications, as it presses ahead with an idea to build up an “army of drones”, Reuters reported. Commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi signed off on the creation of the units in a project that would involve several ministries and agencies, the general staff said.

Ten regions of Ukraine are instituting emergency power outages due to a power shortage in the network after Thursday’s Russian attacks, Ukraine’s state broadcaster has reported. Repairs to damaged facilities are continuing.

The Kremlin claims Joe Biden has the key to end the conflict in Ukraine by directing Kyiv to settle but has not been willing to use it. “The key to the Kyiv regime is largely in the hands of Washington,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. “Now we see that the current White House leader … does not want to use this key. On the contrary, he chooses the path of further pumping weapons into Ukraine.” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Washington of engaging in a “hybrid war” against Moscow.

The European Union wants swift accountability for “horrific” crimes in Ukraine, EU justice ministers have said while meeting in Stockholm. But the member states differ over how to bring prosecutions, seek evidence or fund war damage repairs. .

Hungary will veto any European Union sanctions against Russia affecting nuclear energy, the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, told state radio on Friday.

Russia is violating the “fundamental principles of child protection” in wartime by giving Ukrainian children Russian passports and putting them up for adoption, the head of the UN’s refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, has said.

The United States appears poised to start a process that would eventually send dozens of its M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, US media reported, in a reversal that could have significant implications for Kyiv’s efforts to repel Russian forces.

The move follows reports on Tuesday that Berlin has succumbed to huge international and domestic pressure and was set to announce that it will send German-manufactured tanks to Ukraine, and allow other countries to do the same.

The decision is expected to be made officially on Wednesday and Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is due to be questioned in the Bundestag in the morning in a debate likely to be dominated by the tank decision.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident the alliance will find a solution soon, after meeting Germany’s defence minister. “At this pivotal moment in the war, we must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Kyiv needed allies to decide on whether they would deliver modern tanks to strengthen the country’s defence against Russia. Zelenskiy said the issue was not about five, 10 or 15 tanks, as Ukraine’s needs are greater, but about reaching final decisions on real deliveries. “When the needed weighty decisions are made, we will be happy to thank you for each weighty decision,” Zelenskiy said.

In Ukraine, fifteen senior officials have left their posts since Saturday, six of whom have had corruption allegations levelled at them by journalists and Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities. The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Tuesday he had asked Zelenskiy on Monday to relieve him of his duties as part of the wave of government resignations and dismissals.

Deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for supplying troops with food and equipment, also resigned, citing “media accusations” of corruption that he and the ministry say are baseless. Deputy prosecutor general Oleksiy Symonenko has been removed from his post, and two deputy ministers resigned from Ukraine’s ministry of communities and territories development.

Five regional governors are also being removed from power: Valentyn Reznichenko, of Dnipropetrovsk, Oleksandra Starukha of Zaporizhzhia, Oleksiy Kuleba of Kyiv, Dymtro Zhivytskyi, of Sumy and Yaroslav Yanushevich, of Kherson. Kherson and Zaporizhizhia are two of the regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation has claimed to annex.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock, intended to illustrate existential risks to the world, at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has ever been since it was first introduced in 1947. It is “largely” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they said.

Ukraine has enough coal and gas reserves for the remaining months of winter despite repeated Russian attacks on its energy system, prime minister Denys Shmyhal has said.

Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto has signalled a possible pause in discussions with Turkey over Finnish ambitions to join Nato alongside Sweden, which he says is due to the pressure of Turkey’s forthcoming election.

Supporters of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gathered for a protest in Berlin on Tuesday to highlight the prison conditions in Russia he is being kept in.

Russia does not plan to rebuild the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol which were the site of heavy bombardment in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Russian football officials met their counterparts at Uefa on Tuesday as they tried to negotiate Russia’s return to international football in Europe. It has been banned by Uefa and Fifa since the invasion of Ukraine.

An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that caution and slow decision making over whether to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine is costing lives. Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Saturday his frustration at “global indecision” over arms supply to Ukraine: “Today’s indecision is killing more of our people. Every day of delay is the death of Ukrainians. Think faster.”

Baltic countries have told Germany to send the tanks “now” to Ukraine after perceived heel-dragging by the government in Berlin. The Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, tweeted they are “needed to stop Russian aggression”. The same tweet was put out by his counterparts in Estonia and Lithuania.

Joe Biden told reporters after an event on Friday night that “Ukraine is going to get all the help they need,” in response to a question about the tanks.

The German defence minister, Boris Pistoriusm said that despite heightened expectations “we still cannot say when a decision will be taken, and what the decision will be, when it comes to the Leopard tank”. Germany has said it is doing a stocktake of its current tank numbers ahead of a possible decision.

Some 50 nations agreed on Friday to provide Kyiv with billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware, including armoured vehicles and munitions needed to push back Russian forces.

A tearful Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended a memorial service on Saturday to commemorate seven senior interior ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The interior minister, Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy and five others were killed when their helicopter plummeted amid fog into a nursery on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv. Including those on the ground, a total of 14 people were killed.

Agence France-Presse has reported the Russian army as saying its troops have launched an offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region in south-east Ukraine. Russian forces claimed to have taken “more advantageous lines and positions” during the assault.

A 17-year-old boy has been injured by Russian shelling of Sumy oblast, Ukraine.

Russian attacks on Friday killed one person in Kharkiv, three people in Donetsk and one person in Zaporizhzhia. Four were also injured in Kherson, according to Zelenskiy’s office.

The war in Ukraine is in a state of deadlock, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. In an intelligence update, it said there was a possibility of Russian advances around the heavily contested city of Bakhmut in the Donbas region, but otherwise little movement.

Near Kremina in the north-east, Ukraine’s forces have made small gains and defended against Russian counterattacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his government was expecting “strong decisions” from defence leaders of Nato and other countries meeting on Friday to discuss boosting Ukraine’s ability to confront Russian forces with modern battle tanks.

A group of 11 Nato countries have pledged a raft of new military aid for Ukraine, ahead of a crunch meeting on arms for Kyiv in Germany on Friday. The aid from countries including Britain, Estonia, Latvia and Poland will include tens of stinger air defence systems, S-60 anti-aircraft guns, machine guns and training, according to a statement.

The US has announced $2.5bn in new weaponry and munitions for Ukraine. The package includes 90 Stryker armoured personnel carriers, an additional 59 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Avenger air defence systems, and large and small munitions, according to a Pentagon statement.

CIA Director William Burns recently traveled in secret to Ukraine’s capital to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a US official told Reuters on Thursday. “Director Burns traveled to Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian intelligence counterparts as well as President Zelenskiy and reinforced our continued support for Ukraine and its defense against Russian aggression,” the US official, who declined to be identified or say when the visit took place.

Britain plans to send 600 Brimstone missiles to Ukraine to support the country in its fight against Russia, defence minister Ben Wallace announced. Speaking at a meeting with other defence ministers at the Tapa army base in Estonia, Wallace outlined a previously announced package of military support for Ukraine, including sending Challenger tanks. “We’re in it for the long haul,” he said.

Sweden’s government announced a new package of military aid to Ukraine that will include armoured infantry fighting vehicles and the Archer artillery system. Poland said it was sending S-60 anti-aircraft guns with 70,000 rounds of ammunition and was ready to donate a company of German-made Leopard 2 tanks, “pending (a) wider coalition” of Leopard donors.

Lithuania’s defence minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, has said several countries will announce sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine at Friday’s meeting of defence ministers at the Ramstein airbase in Germany. The total number of armoured vehicles pledged at tomorrow’s meeting would go into hundreds, Anušauskas told Reuters.

Estonia’s defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, announced his country will send military equipment to Ukraine worth €113m in its latest package of support.

Denmark announced it will donate 19 French-made Caesar howitzer artillery systems to Kyiv.

The US and German defence ministers met on Thursday as Berlin faces pressure to allow the transfer of German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The meeting between Lloyd Austin and Boris Pistorius came as a German government source told Reuters that Berlin would allow Leopard tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help its defence against Russia if the US agreed to send its own tanks. But US officials have publicly and privately insisted that Washington has no plans to send US-made tanks to Ukraine for now, arguing that they would be too difficult for Kyiv to maintain and would require a huge logistical effort to simply run.

A German government spokesperson has said it has yet to receive a request from any country for permission to re-export German-made tanks to Ukraine. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has signalled that it could send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine as part of a wider coalition even without Germany’s approval. “Consent is of secondary importance here, we will either obtain this consent quickly, or we will do what is needed ourselves,” Morawiecki said.

The Kremlin has said Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine “one way or another” and the sooner Kyiv accepts its demands, the sooner the conflict will end. The Kremlin has repeatedly said Russia is ready to halt military operations if Ukraine meets its demands, but Moscow has not publicly outlined details of its negotiating position or what it is seeking from Kyiv in order to end hostilities.

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, says he worries the world is becoming complacent about the dangers posed by the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Grossi, speaking to reporters in Kyiv, said a nuclear accident could happen any day and reiterated the situation at the plant was very precarious.

Moldova has requested air defence systems from its allies with the aim of strengthening its capabilities as the war in neighbouring Ukraine continues, its president, Maia Sandu, said. Moldova’s spy chief, Alexandru Musteata, warned last month of a “very high” risk of a new Russian offensive towards his country’s east and said Moscow still aimed to secure a land corridor through Ukraine to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria.

A Swedish court has sentenced two brothers to prison for spying for Russia and its military intelligence service GRU for a decade. Iranian-born Peyman Kia, 42, was sentenced to life, while his younger brother, Payam Kia, was sentenced to nine years and 10 months.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stepped up calls for Ukraine’s army to be supplied with heavy tanks and urged “resolve and speed” of decision-making from western allies. Addressing a packed gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos via video link on Wednesday, Ukraine’s president warned that “tyranny is outpacing democracy”.

Nato countries are set to announce new “heavier weapons” for Ukraine, the alliance’s chief has said. Many of Ukraine’s allies will meet on Friday at the Ramstein military base in Germany, including all 30 Nato members. “The main message there will be more support and more advanced support, heavier weapons and more modern weapons,” said Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary general. This month Britain pledged western heavy tanks and the US promised to send its powerful Bradley armoured fighting vehicles, while France offered its highly mobile AMX-10 RCs.

The European Union’s head also spoke in favour of the west providing tanks to Ukraine. “We, the EU, will continue to support them for as long as it takes,” Charles Michel, the European Council president, said on Wednesday. “The time is now – they urgently need more equipment and I am personally in favour of supplying tanks to Ukraine.”

Germany’s chancellor avoided committing to the supply of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Olaf Scholz did not mention the Leopard tanks when a Ukrainian delegate asked him “why the hesitancy” in signing off their re-export at the Davos summit. The German leader said his country was “strategically interlocked” with the US, France and other “friends and partners”, and that any decisions about weapons had to be part of a collective effort to help Ukraine win the war. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper later reported that Scholz had spoken with the US president, Joe Biden, and “made it clear that Germany could only give in to the pressure to deliver if the US delivered Abrams battle tanks”. The US was not prepared to provide the advanced Abrams tanks to Ukraine, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday, citing difficulties in maintenance and training.

Canada announced it would donate 200 armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine. The move came during a visit to Kyiv by Canada’s defence minister, Anita Anand. Zelenskiy thanked the Canadian people and its prime minister, Justin Trudeau, “on this difficult day”.

Bulgaria helped Ukraine survive Russia’s early onslaught by secretly supplying it with large amounts of desperately needed diesel and ammunition, the politicians responsible have said. The former Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov and finance minister Assen Vassilev said their country – one of the poorest EU members and long perceived as pro-Moscow – provided 30% of the Soviet-calibre ammunition Ukraine’s army needed during a crucial three-month period last spring, and at times 40% of the diesel.

Poland’s president has warned that Russia could be planning a new offensive in the coming months, calling on countries to provide Ukraine with “weapons, weapons, weapons”. Andrzej Duda told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Russia was still strong and that more action was needed to support Ukraine, saying current levels of assistance were inadequate.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has written a letter inviting the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, for talks, which was handed to the Chinese delegation in Davos, said the Ukrainian leader’s wife, Olena Zelenska. “It was a gesture and invitation to dialogue and I hope very much that there will be a response to this invitation,” she told reporters on Wednesday. China has sought to position itself as neutral in the war, while at the same time deepening ties with Moscow.

Ukraine reported intense fighting overnight in the east of the country, where both sides have taken huge losses for little gain in intense trench warfare over the past two months. Ukrainian forces repelled attacks in the eastern city of Bakhmut and the nearby village of Klishchiivka, the Ukrainian military said. Russia has focused on Bakhmut in recent weeks, claiming last week to have taken the mining town of Soledar on its northern outskirts. “We notice a gradual increase in the number of shelling occasions and attempts at offensive actions by the occupiers,” Zelenskiy said in his latest address.

Vladimir Putin has said he has “no doubt” that Russia’s victory in Ukraine is “inevitable”. He announced that Russia’s military-industrial complex was ramping up production during a visit to a factory in St Petersburg. In a separate speech, the Russian president also claimed Moscow’s actions in Ukraine were intended to stop a “war” that had been raging in eastern Ukraine for many years. Ukraine and the west have rejected Putin’s stated objectives of demilitarising and “denazifying” Ukraine as a pretext for a war of choice and unprovoked aggression.

Four people have been detained by Moscow police at a makeshift memorial dedicated to victims of Saturday’s deadly missile strike on a residential building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, according to a report. People began placing flowers at the statue of Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka in a “spontaneous memorial in memory of the victims of the missile strike in Dnipro”, the independent Russian human rights monitor OVD-Info said.