Ukrainians will fight “for as long as we can” to hold the “fortress” city of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed as he hosted EU leaders to discuss further sanctions on Russia and Kyiv's prospects for joining the EU.

ARMS

Portugal will send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said, without specifying how many will be shipped.

A $2.2bn US military aid package to Ukraine includes a new rocket, the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb, that would double the country's strike range, the Pentagon said on Friday.

France said on Friday it and Italy have completed technical talks for the joint delivery of a SAMP/T-MAMBA air defence system, the only European-made system that can intercept ballistic missiles, to Ukraine in the spring.

DIPLOMACY

The US has warned about the export to Russia of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow's war effort in Ukraine, and it could move to enforce existing bans, according to a senior US official.

Sixty-three Russian prisoners of war were released as a result of a complex negotiation process with Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported, citing Moscow's defence ministry.

China said mutual political trust with Russia has deepened further after vice-foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu met foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Russia.

The EU offered strong support for Ukraine at the Kyiv summit as air raid sirens wailed on Friday, but set “no rigid timelines” for its accession to the wealthy bloc. Zelensky had hoped the EU would put Ukraine on a rapid road to membership.

Western economies agreed price caps on Friday on Russian diesel and other refined petroleum products that US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said would build on a crude oil cap set in December and further limit Russian oil revenues while keeping global energy markets supplied.

The EU's next package of sanctions against Russia will hit the trade and technology that support Moscow's war against Ukraine, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.

Canada imposed sanctions on Friday on 38 individuals and 16 entities it said were “complicit in peddling Russian disinformation and propaganda”, prompting a quick promise of retaliation from Moscow.

Turkey's airport ground service provider Havas told Russian and Belarusian airliners it may stop providing services to their US-origin aircraft, in line with Western sanctions.

The US on Friday imposed sanctions on the directors of Iranian drone maker Paravar Pars, with the Treasury department saying Iranian drones were being used by Russia to attack Ukraine's critical infrastructure.

Belarusian athletes openly opposing the leadership of Alexander Lukashenko on Friday called on the International Olympic Committee to let them compete while barring those who support the authorities and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

CONFLICT

Germany has collected evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, the country's prosecutor general said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday, adding that he saw a need for a judicial process at international level.

Ukraine's defence minister said on Friday new tanks supplied by Nato countries would serve as an “iron fist” in a counteroffensive by Kyiv to break through Russian defensive lines.

Ukraine unveiled a criminal case on Friday against the boss of Russia's Wagner mercenary company, promising to track down and prosecute the company's fighters who try to flee abroad. 

Meanwhile, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said the supply of more advanced US weaponry to Ukraine will only trigger more retaliatory strikes from Russia, up to the extent of Russia's nuclear doctrine.

“All of Ukraine that remains under Kyiv's rule will burn,” journalist Nadana Fridrikhson quoted him as saying in an interview with her.

Fridrikhson asked Medvedev, who as deputy chair of the UN Security Council has become one of Russia's most hawkish pro-war figures since its invasion of Ukraine, whether the use of longer-range weapons might force Russia to negotiate with Kyiv.

“The result will be just the opposite,” Medvedev replied, in comments Fridrikhson posted on her Telegram channel. “Only moral freaks, of which there are enough both in the White House and in the Capitol, can argue like that.”

With the first anniversary of the invasion approaching on February 24, Russian forces have been on the back foot for the past eight months and do not fully control any of the four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow has unilaterally declared part of Russia.

President Vladimir Putin casts Russia's campaign in Ukraine as an existential defence against an aggressive West and has, like Medvedev, several times brandished the threat of a nuclear response, saying Russia will use all available means to protect itself and its people.

Asked what would happen if the weapons that Washington has promised Ukraine were to strike Crimea — which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014 — or deep into Russia, Medvedev said Putin had addressed the matter clearly.

“We don't set ourselves any limits and, depending on the nature of the threats, we're ready to use all types of weapons. In accordance with our doctrinal documents, including the Fundamentals of Nuclear Deterrence,” he said. “I can assure you that the answer will be quick, tough and convincing.”

Russia's nuclear doctrine allows for a nuclear strike after “aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened”.