Ukraine updates: Kyiv says Russian attacks kill 6 civilians

French President Emmanuel Macron has reaffirmed his country's support for Ukraine during a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the French presidency said.

Macron's conversation with Zelenskyy comes amid speculation that Israel's war with Hamas may impact Western powers' support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

"He assured the Ukrainian president that the proliferation of crises would not weaken French and European support for Ukraine, which will be there for as long as it takes," said Macron's office.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine highly values France's military aid. "President Macron and I focused on the next steps to strengthen Ukraine's air defense, long-range, and naval capabilities," he wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.

Earlier this month, NATO members assured Zelenskyy that they would keep up military aid deliveries to Ukraine, even as Western attention focuses on the fallout from Hamas' attack on Israel.

The German government proposed steps to speed up the integration of tens of
thousands of Ukrainian refugees into its labour market, calling on companies to loosen their German language requirements and offer extra training.

The government is hoping to enlist the support of companies, employment agencies and associations for a voluntary commitment, and appointed a special representative from the Federal Employment Agency, Daniel Terzenbach, to liaise with them.

The German economy urgently needs labour and skilled workers, Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said. "Work also leads to integration," he added.

According to the Federal Employment Agency, the employment rate of Ukrainians in Germany is currently 19%. "But this is far from enough," Heil said.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, more than one million people from Ukraine have sought protection in Germany. As of September, there were 205,970 unemployed Ukrainians in Germany.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry condemned steps by Russia to revoke ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and urged the international community to respond to Moscow's "provocations."

It said in a statement on its website that Russia had "already provoked a dangerous imbalance in the global architecture of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation" by suspending participation in the New START Treaty and with the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the delivery of the US-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine, calling it an "additional threat" in the conflict.

"Firstly, this of course causes harm and creates an additional threat. Secondly, we will of course be able to repel these attacks. War is war," Putin said on Wednesday.

"But most importantly, it fundamentally lacks the capacity to change the situation on the line of contact at all ... This is another mistake by the United States."

Ukraine had repeatedly asked the US administration for the ATACMS in order to disrupt Russian supply lines and bases in Russian-occupied territory that were beyond the range of shorter-range missiles.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed for the first time that the Ukrainian army used the ATACMS in an attack that reportedly destroyed nine Russian helicopters as well as ammunition, an air defense system and other assets at two airfields in Russia-occupied regions. It was one of the most damaging attacks on Russia's air assets since the begining of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Putin said that Washington was wading deeper into the conflict by supplying Ukraine with the ATACMS. 

"A mistake of a larger scale, as yet invisible but still of great importance, is that the United States is becoming more and more personally drawn into this conflict," he said.

"And let no one say that they have nothing to do with this. We believe they do."

Russian forces are likely to escelate their assault on the front line town of Avdiivka, a local Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.

Russia claimed to have improved its position around Avdiivka in recent days. It now controls territor to the north, south and east of the town, which lies just north of Donetsk.

"I can say for sure that this is the largest offensive that has ever taken place in Avdiivka since the war began in 2014," said the head of the town's administration, Vitaliy Barabash.

"Most likely, in the next few days we expect this escalation to continue."

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday to meet with his North Korean counterpart.

It comes after Kim Jong Un made a rare overseas visit to Russia's Far East last month.

The United States believes that Russia is seeking access to North Korea's vast ammunition stockpiles to for its invasion of Ukraine. In return, North Korea is seeking access to Russian advanced technologies for its nuclear weapons program.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said that Russia is reinforcing western border, according to Russian state news agency RIA.

The minister said that this was being done in anticipation of US-made F-16 fighter aircraft being supplied to Ukraine in 2024.

Ukrainian pilots began F-16 training in August.

The British Ministry of Defence says in its daily intelligence update that there have been increased Russian attacks along the eastern frontline in Ukraine.

"There has been a significant increase in Russian offensive activity on the Kupiansk-Lyman axis in the last two weeks," the ministry said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"It is highly likely that this activity is part of an ongoing Russian offensive being conducted on multiple axes in eastern Ukraine," it said, adding that Russian forces likely aimed to create a "buffer zone" around the eastern Luhansk region.

Luhansk is one of the two regions that make up eastern Ukraine's Donbas. It is largely held by Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces.

The British intelligence update said that it was "highly unlikely" Russian forces would achieve a "major operational breakthrough," as "Ukrainian forces retain a significant defensive presence [in eastern Ukraine]."

Russian missile strikes on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia have killed two people, according to local authorities.

Zaporizhzhia Governor Yuriy Malashko said that Russia launched six missile attacks on the region's capital early on Wednesday. Three people were injured in the strikes, he said.

Emergency services said that the attack destroyed three stories of a residential building.

The governor of Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said that a Russian strike had killed one civilian and injured three in the Dnipro district.

He said that six private houses were damaged.

The governor of the southern Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said that two people were killed in an overnight attack.

Officials in the northeastern city of Kharkiv said that the local power grid was damaged in a Russian air strike and warned of potential outages.

sdi/fb (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)