Nearly four dozen nations have committed to offering new weapons systems and other security assistance to Ukraine as its defense forces continue to push back against Russian troops, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said.

Mr Austin announced the new weapons transfers following a meeting of defense ministers for the 24-country Ukraine Contact Group, during which the group received a briefing from Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.

Speaking to reporters at the close of the meeting, Mr Austin said attendees had “gained a sharper and shared sense of Ukraine’s priority requirements and the situation on the battlefield”.

The US is to shut off the last means for Russia to pay its billions in debt back to international investors on Wednesday.

The move makes a Russian default on its debts for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution all but inevitable.

The US Treasury Department said that it does not plan to renew the license that allowed Russia to keep paying its debtholders through American banks.

Since the first rounds of sanctions, the Treasury Department has given banks a license to process any dollar-denominated bond payments from Russia. That window expired at midnight on 25 May.

Azov Regiment leader Denys Prokopenko is alive in Russian-controlled territory, his wife said on Tuesday after holding a brief telephone conversation.

Kateryna Prokopenko said that her husband asked her how she was, but that the line broke off before he could say anything about himself.

She said the phone call was possible under an agreement between the governments of Ukraine and Russia and thanks to the mediation of the Red Cross, which has been visiting some of the Ukrainian fighters who surrendered.

Earlier this month Russia announced its takeover of Mariupol with the surrender of the fighters holed up at the massive Azovstal steel mill.

The Ukrainian governor of the eastern Luhansk region has said the area is facing “the most difficult time” since conflict with Russia-backed separatists began in 2014.

“Now, for the Luhansk region, is the most difficult time in the eight years of the war,” Serhii Haidai wrote on Telegram. “The Russians are advancing in all directions at the same time, they brought over an insane number of fighters and equipment.”

He also accused Moscow’s troops of deploying scorched-earth tactics across the region.

“It’s only getting worse. What the Russians are doing is hard to describe in words. The invaders are killing our cities, destroying everything around. The situation is on the verge of being critical. The free Luhansk region is now like Mariupol,” he added, in a reference to the ruined port city captured by Moscow last week.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has claimed that Moscow is deliberately slowing its offensive in Ukraine to allow civilians to evacuate.

“Ceasefires are being declared and humanitarian corridors are being created in order to get people out of surrounded settlements,” Mr Shoigu said in televised remarks on day 90 of the war.

“Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but this is done deliberately to avoid casualties among the civilian population,” he told defense ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of Russia and five other former Soviet republics.

Despite Mr Shoigu’s comments on sparing civilians, the United Nations has recorded 3,930 civilian casualties during the conflict.

Ukraine’s military has said that Russian troops killed at least 14 civilians and injured 15 more on Tuesday during mass attacks in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the focus of Moscow’s latest offensive.

Writing in a Facebook post, it said Russian troops had used aircraft, multiple rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, mortars and missiles in their assault on the two regions, large parts of which are controlled by Russian-speaking separatists.

Nearly four dozen nations have committed to offering new weapons systems and other security assistance to Ukraine as its defense forces continue to push back against Russian troops, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said.

Mr Austin announced the new weapons transfers following a meeting of defense ministers for the 24-country Ukraine Contact Group, during which the group received a briefing from Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.

Speaking to reporters at the close of the meeting, Mr Austin said attendees had “gained a sharper and shared sense of Ukraine’s priority requirements and the situation on the battlefield”.

Russian forces have encircled Ukrainian troops in twin cities straddling a river in eastern Ukraine, in a battle which may determine the success or failure of Moscow’s main campaign in the east.

“The situation on the [eastern] front is extremely difficult because the fate of this country is perhaps being decided [there] right now,” Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told a televised briefing.

The internationally famous golden arches of McDonald’s were pulled down from a restaurant close to Moscow after the fast-food chain said it is pulling out of Russia.

Stores in hundreds of locations across the country were closed down in March following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, in a move that cost the business around $55 million per month.

An existing McDonald’s licensee, Alexander Govor, who operates 25 restaurants in Siberia, has bought 850 Russian restaurants and has agreed to operate them under a new name, according to AP.