Western allies say they are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine Western military powers are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine to repel Russian attacks, the UK and Nato have warned. Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, Adm Rob Bauer, Nato’s most senior military official, said governments and defence manufacturers now had to “ramp up production in a much higher tempo”. The admiral, who chairs Nato’s military committee, was quoted by BBC News as saying: We need large volumes. The just-in-time, just-enough economy we built together in 30 years in our liberal economies is fine for a lot of things – but not the armed forces when there is a war ongoing. He said “the bottom of the barrel is now visible”, with Ukraine said to be firing thousands of shells (many of which come from Nato) every day. The comments came as the US president, Joe Biden, spoke with the leaders of allied countries, the EU and the Nato military alliance on Tuesday about continuing coordinated support for Ukraine. Biden convened the call amid concerns that support for Kyiv’s war effort against Russia was fading, especially in the US where Congress excluded aid to Ukraine from an emergency bill to prevent a partial government shutdown. Adding to concerns, the UK’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said western military stockpiles were “looking a bit thin”, reportedly adding the “just-in-time” model “definitely does not work when you need to be ready for the fight tomorrow”. “If it’s not the time – when there is a war in Europe – to spend 2% on defence, then when is?” he asked the forum. Closing summary... One of Ukraine’s top generals said that his forces were advancing in the south. “In the Tavria sector, there has been an advance by the defence forces,” General Oleksander Tarnavskyi said in a post on Telegram. US President, Joe Biden, spoke with US allies and partners to coordinate future support for Ukraine. Poland’s president Andrzej Duda said afterward that Biden had assured the group of continued US support for Ukraine and of his strong conviction that Congress will not walk away. Western military powers are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine to repel Russian attacks, the UK and Nato have warned. The Belarusian defence ministry said it had started exercises to check its armed forces’ combat readiness, Reuters reported. Kyiv’s attempts to penetrate Russian defences on frontlines in the east and south of the country have “failed”, Moscow said. The UK’s defence minister, James Heappey, has hailed “the functional defeat” of Russia in the Black Sea over past weeks, saying the “Russian navy has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine”. Kyiv has been told it is “absolutely possible” that EU membership talks could begin this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after a surprise meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Ukrainian capital. We have some more details on the call Joe Biden had with western allies earlier (see post at 16:13). The office of the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Biden was “keen to reassure the allies about the continuing American support for Ukraine, also after the recent decisions of the US Congress.” The Nato leader, Jens Stoltenberg, said the call was “good” while EU chief Charles Michel said the allies “stand united”. Russian prosecutors have demanded a nine-and-a-half-year jail sentence for fugitive former state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, famous for bursting into a news broadcast with a placard that read “Stop the war” and “They’re lying to you”. The foreign-based independent news site Mediazona said the prosecution had made the demand at Ovsyannikova’s trial in absentia for distributing “fake news”, a term that includes any information about Russia’s war in Ukraine that is at odds with the official narrative. Ovsyannikova, 45, fled Russia with her daughter for an unspecified European country a year ago after escaping from house arrest, according to her lawyer, saying she had no case to answer. She had staged her original protest less than three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine last February, in what it called a “special military operation”. The charge of “fake news” relates to a protest in July last year when she stood on a river embankment opposite the Kremlin and held up a poster calling Vladimir Putin a murderer and his soldiers fascists, Reuters reports. Russia passed new laws against discrediting or distributing “deliberately false information” about the armed forces on 4 March 2022, eight days after invading Ukraine. Danish brewer Carlsberg said that it had cut licensing agreements with its Russian subsidiary, which was seized by authorities in July in response to plans to sell the company after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Several western firms have stopped operating in Russia over the war, which drew sweeping sanctions against Moscow from the US and Europe. Carlsberg had announced in June that a buyer had been found for Baltika, which it has owned since 2000, and its 8,400 employees, AFP reports. But a decree the following month signed by Vladimir Putin said the state was taking over the business. “We currently see no path to a negotiated solution for exiting Russia. We refuse to be forced into a deal on unacceptable terms, justifying the illegitimate takeover of our business,” Carlsberg said in a statement. Ukrainian forces advance on southern front, says general One of Ukraine’s top generals said on Tuesday that his forces were advancing in the south. “In the Tavria sector, there has been an advance by the defence forces,” General Oleksander Tarnavskyi said in a post on Telegram, using the military’s name for the southern front. Tarnavskyi, head of the southern group of forces, said troops had conducted 1,198 assignments in the past 24 hours, with Russian forces sustaining losses of 261 men and a further 10 being taken prisoner. The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in its evening report that offensive operations were proceeding in the east and south, with little elaboration. These claims are yet to be independently verified. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia had not abandoned a moratorium on nuclear testing, Reuters reports. Vladimir Putin, who as Russian president rules over the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal, has repeatedly cautioned the west that any attack on Russia could provoke a nuclear response. The Soviet Union’s last nuclear test took place in 1990. The US’s last nuclear test took place in 1992 and France and China conducted their last nuclear tests in 1996, according to the UN. “At present, we have not left the regime of abandoning nuclear tests,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Moldova’s constitutional court has cleared the way for members of a banned pro-Russian party to run in local elections as independent candidates or as members of other parties. The court’s ban on the opposition Shor party, imposed in June, still stands, Reuters reports. The court issued its latest decision after considering a complaint by members of the party, which is headed by exiled businessman Ilan Shor and accused by the west and the Moldovan government of trying to destabilise the country. Announcing the ruling, a senior court member, Serghei Turcan, said an amendment banning Shor party members from participating in elections “had no objective criteria and was too general” and did not respect the right to be elected. The local elections, including for city mayors, take place on 5 November. Shor’s allies have registered a new party called Chance, and a party that already existed, Revival, is considered close to Shor. Marina Tauber, a senior Shor party leader, hopes to run as an independent candidate for mayor in Balti, Moldova’s second largest city. Russia denied last year wanting to intervene in Moldova, which borders Ukraine and EU member Romania, after authorities in the brekakaway region of Transnistria said they had been targeted by a series of attacks. Rishi Sunak told G7 and Nato leaders on Tuesday that the UK was prepared to support Ukraine with military, humanitarian and economic assistance “for as long as it take,” the prime minister’s office said in a readout of a call. “He outlined the UK’s ongoing military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine and stressed that this support will continue for as long as it takes,” a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement. Western allies say they are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine Western military powers are running out of ammunition to give to Ukraine to repel Russian attacks, the UK and Nato have warned. Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, Adm Rob Bauer, Nato’s most senior military official, said governments and defence manufacturers now had to “ramp up production in a much higher tempo”. The admiral, who chairs Nato’s military committee, was quoted by BBC News as saying: We need large volumes. The just-in-time, just-enough economy we built together in 30 years in our liberal economies is fine for a lot of things – but not the armed forces when there is a war ongoing. He said “the bottom of the barrel is now visible”, with Ukraine said to be firing thousands of shells (many of which come from Nato) every day. The comments came as the US president, Joe Biden, spoke with the leaders of allied countries, the EU and the Nato military alliance on Tuesday about continuing coordinated support for Ukraine. Biden convened the call amid concerns that support for Kyiv’s war effort against Russia was fading, especially in the US where Congress excluded aid to Ukraine from an emergency bill to prevent a partial government shutdown. Adding to concerns, the UK’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said western military stockpiles were “looking a bit thin”, reportedly adding the “just-in-time” model “definitely does not work when you need to be ready for the fight tomorrow”. “If it’s not the time – when there is a war in Europe – to spend 2% on defence, then when is?” he asked the forum. Joe Biden assured leaders of G7 and European states of Washington’s continued support for Ukraine during a video conference, the Polish president said on Tuesday. “He assured us that support for aid given to Ukraine continues, especially military aid. He said he would secure this support in Congress,” Andrzej Duda told a news conference. Belarus begins army combat readiness exercises The Belarusian defence ministry said it had started exercises to check its armed forces’ combat readiness, Reuters reports. “The troops will march as soon as possible to the designated areas, followed by the performance of normative standards on the subjects of combat training,” the ministry said. It did not specify when the exercises would end. The manoeuvres will take place in the Minsk and Vitebsk regions and will involve military hardware and aviation. Military drills in Belarus, which allowed Russia to use its territory as a staging post for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, periodically raise security concerns in Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states. Minsk has denied any hostile plans towards its neighbours, but warned that any incursion against Belarusian territory will invite a response. Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of allied countries, the EU and the Nato military alliance on Tuesday about continuing coordinated support for Ukraine, the White House said. Leaders on the call included the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the White House said in a statement. Leaders in the Senate, which is narrowly controlled by the Democrats, have promised to take up legislation in the coming weeks to ensure continued US security and economic support for Ukraine. Washington has sent the Kyiv government $113bn in security, economic and humanitarian aid since Russia invaded in February 2022. Here are some of the latest images coming from the newswires: Moscow says Ukraine has failed to penetrate Russian defences in the east and south Kyiv’s attempts to penetrate Russian defences on frontlines in the east and south of the country have “failed”, Moscow said on Tuesday. Kyiv launched its counteroffensive in June but has acknowledged slow progress. “The enemy’s attempts to break through our defences in the areas of Verbovoye and Rabotino on the Zaporizhzhia front have failed,” defence minister Sergei Shoigu told senior Russian military officials, according to AFP. He was using Russian placenames to refer to two villages along the frontline in the south where Ukrainian forces claim to have broken through the toughest points of Russian defences and recaptured several villages. Shoigu also said the Russian army had “repelled all attacks in the Soledar-Bakhmout direction” on the eastern front in the war-battered Donetsk region. These claims are yet to be independently verified. The Ukrainian president visited troops fighting in the north-east on Tuesday and met commanders to discuss the battlefield situation on one of the hottest fronts of the war with Russia. Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not give the exact location of his visit but said he had met brigades fighting in the Kupiansk-Lyman sector in the north-east, where the Ukrainian military says Russian forces have been staging attacks, Reuters reports. “We met with brigade and battalion commanders to discuss the battlefield situation, pressing issues, and needs,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter, above photos of him meeting soldiers in a dimly lit room. “Each of our combat brigades, each warrior who destroys the occupiers with every step forward, asserts that the Ukrainian victory will surely come. They are the power. I thank them for their service!” The president’s office also posted footage showing Zelenskiy at various times during the visit shaking hands with troops, sitting at a long table with commanders and being briefed by an officer standing in front of a map. Two vessels sailing under the flags of the Marshall Islands and Cameroon are heading towards the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa, a Ukrainian lawmaker has reported. Oleksiy Honcharenko did not provide any details other than their names, Equator and Maranta, but posted images of vessels on the Telegram messaging app. A senior member of the government said on Sunday five other ships were on their way to Ukrainian Black Sea ports using a new corridor opened for predominantly agricultural exports after Russia’s decision to quit a UN-brokered wartime deal on safe shipments. Armenia’s parliament on Tuesday voted to join the international criminal court (ICC), obliging the former Soviet republic to arrest President Vladimir Putin if he were to visit the country. The decision will further strain relations with Moscow, Armenia’s traditional ally. Ties are already badly damaged over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Kremlin last week warned Armenia that its decision to join the ICC, which has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children, was “extremely hostile”. The Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards has sued the Dutch government over damages it says it has suffered because of European sanctions against Russia, Reuters reports. Damen, which produces a wide-ranging fleet of industrial and military vessels and luxury yachts, is seeking compensation for business lost due to the sanctions, a company spokesperson, Rick van de Weg, said, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg. Damen had delivery contracts for a number of vessels across the company’s portfolio that were scrapped by the sanctions invoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Van de Weg said. Damen had an engineering branch in Russia, but has severed ties with this operation after the invasion, he added. The company could not immediately comment on the number of contracts it had for deliveries in Russia or the size of the compensation it is claiming. The Dutch government in April last year said it was preventing 14 yachts, including 12 under construction, from leaving the Netherlands because of sanctions on Russia. The Kremlin said on Tuesday it knew nothing about a report in the Kommersant newspaper that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, could announce next month that he will run for office again in a presidential election set for March. Its spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, was speaking to reporters in a telephone briefing, according to Reuters. Kommersant, citing unidentified sources close to the presidential administration, earlier reported that, as part of a conference in November, officials suspect that Putin may announce he will take part in the election in March next year. The newspaper said there were, however, other scenarios for what Putin might do at the conference, and the final decision rested with him. Putin, who was handed the presidency by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has led Russia for longer than any other ruler since Joseph Stalin.