EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged member countries to deliver more ammunition to Ukraine, as figures reveal that the bloc is a long way from a March target of giving Kyiv a million artillery shells within 12 months.
Mr Borrell said that over-arching agreements, known as framework contracts, had been signed with arms firms to allow EU member countries to place joint orders for 155mm Howitzer rounds, which are urgently needed by Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.
"Now it's (up) to the member states to pass concrete orders inside these framework agreements with the industry," Mr Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU defence ministers in the Spanish city of Toledo.
The appeal comes amid warnings from the US that arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea are actively advancing.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told a briefing that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had recently traveled to North Korea to try to convince Pyongyang to supply Moscow with artillery shells.
Meanwhile, media reports in Ukraine indicate that an accident involving two military helicopters has killed six servicemen.
The news site Ukrainska Pravda reported that the crash involved widely used Mi-8 military helicopters and occurred near the town of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, near the front-line.
An air force spokesperson identified as Yevhen Rakita confirmed the deaths to the Ukrainian public service broadcaster Suspilne, but gave no details on the circumstances
Air strikes
Ukraine sounded a positive note over its recapture of Robotyne village this week, claiming that it was a strategic victory which would pave the way for its forces to push deeper into Russian positions in the south towards Crimea.
The claim comes as two people were reported killed in the "most powerful" aerial attack in weeks and Russia reported a drone strike on military aircraft in its northwest.
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons and building up assault battalions.
Progress has been costly and staggered, but Ukrainian forces announced they had pushed through key Russian defensive lines, with the capture of the area in the Zaporizhzhia region this week.
"Having entrenched on the flanks of Robotyne, we are opening the way to Tokmak and, eventually, Melitopol and the administrative border with Crimea," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said during an earlier official visit to Paris.
The Kremlin has downplayed the offensive and Yevgeny Balitsky, its official in charge of the Zaporizhzhia region - which Russia claims as its own, warned territory beyond Robotyne would be a "mass grave for Ukraine's armed forces".
In Kyiv, an AFP reporter heard at least three explosions at around 5am (3am Irish time) as part of the country-wide barrage of 28 cruise missiles and 16 attack drones.
"We heard explosions, and we could see the flashes through the window," said Oksana Soloviuk, who lives next to one building hit by debris.
Yevgen Ananenko and his father ran downstairs when they heard the blasts and metal fragments cut into the side of their building.
"If it had fallen straight into the house, I doubt we would have survived," he said.
Military officials described the attack as "the most powerful" to hit the city since the spring, and authorities said two employees of an infrastructure facility were killed by falling debris in the Shevchenkivsky district.
Russian forces launched groups of Iranian-made Shahed drones at the capital from different directions, and launched missiles from aircraft, the Kyiv city military administration said.
The Russian defence ministry said it had targeted Ukrainian operational and intelligence centres and that all the assigned targets had been hit.
Drone wave
Ukraine has meanwhile stepped-up drone attacks inside Russia.
It launched a wave of strikes overnight, targeting an airport near the Estonian border and the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, Russian authorities said.
The attack on Pskov airport, roughly 700km from the border with Ukraine, marks the latest strike far from Ukraine's borders since Kyiv vowed to "return" the conflict to Russia in July.
Governor Mikhail Vedernikov, who said he was at the scene of the attack, posted a video online of a massive fire, with the sounds of explosions and sirens in the background.
Authorities were assessing the damage but there were no casualties, he said.
State news agency TASS, citing emergency services, said that four Ilyushin Il-76 heavy transport planes were damaged in the attack in Pskov, but there was no immediate comment from the defence ministry.
