Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine passes controversial bill to broaden civilian mobilisation in attempt to boost military | Ukraine

Ukraine and Latvia have signed a bilateral security agreement, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced, during a visit to Vilnius.

Writing on X, Zelenskiy said: “Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics and I just signed a bilateral security agreement between Ukraine and Latvia.

“It envisages Latvia’s annual military support for Ukraine at 0.25% of GDP. Latvia also made a 10-year commitment to assist Ukraine with cyber defence, demining, and unmanned technologies, as well as support for Ukraine’s EU and Nato accession.

“I am grateful to our friend and partner, Latvia. This is precisely the specificity and predictability that our struggle for freedom and independence requires.”

A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv on Thursday killed two people and injured at least four more, Reuters reports citing the regional governor.

Ukraine’s parliament passed a controversial bill on Thursday that will change the rules on civilian military mobilisation in an effort to address fledgling manpower among its forces.

The legislation, which must be signed by president Volodymyr Zelenskiy before it becomes law, is seen as crucial for Ukraine to address what military analysts say are major manpower problems as it fights a better armed and larger foe.

The bill was passed in its final reading with a majority of 283 votes after months of deliberations, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker for the Holos party, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

A full, final text with all the amendments was not immediately published on the parliament’s websites but it was clear that a demobilisation date for soldiers who have spent long periods fighting on the frontlines a chance to return home has been scrapped, a highly sensitive issue for the many thousands of people who joined the army when Russia’s launched its full-scale invasion.

The news comes as domestic fatigue against the long-running war has set in after a failed summer assault and the country’s forces being outnumbered and outgunned by Russia. Last week, Zelenskiy signed a bill to lower the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25.

Zelenskiy has signed a seperate bill requiring men who were given military waivers on disability grounds to undergo another medical assessment, another measure that could help the military draft more fighters.

Viral videos have shown men snatched from the street to be conscripted, and there have been numerous corruption scandals of officials taking bribes to provide exemption. In August, Zelenskiy fired every regional recruitment chief.

Lawmaker Oleksandr Fedienko said the adoption of the law on mobilisation sent a “message to our partners that we are ready to retake our territory and we need weapons.”

On the battlefield, Russia is inching forward in the east and Ukraine is on the back foot facing shortages of artillery shells amid a slowdown in western military assistance.

Oleksandr Pavliuk, the ground forces commander, called on Ukrainians earlier this week to enlist in the army or to be ready to serve in the army.

“We must realize, no one will be able to sit tight,” he wrote on Facebook.

“No matter how much help we get, no matter how many weapons we have, we lack people! The equipment doesn’t drive by itself, the weapon doesn’t shoot by itself, and the drone won’t fly by itself,” he said.

It took the Ukrainian parliament several months to put the bill to a final vote this week, as politicians accused each other of drafting poorly worded amendments and lacking the political will to approve unpopular changes.

Over 4,000 amendments were submitted after the first reading was passed in February.

Good morning, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for more air defence supplies on Thursday morning after Russia used over 40 missiles and 40 drones to deal damage to the country’s national grid infrastructure in five regions.

Here is a roundup of the other big stories:

• A Russian strike on a grocery store and a pharmacy in the north-eastern Kharkiv region killed three people, including a 14-year-old girl, on Wednesday. The strike on Lyptsi, about 10km from the Russian border, also injured a 16-year-old boy and a woman. Another strike with guided aerial bombs destroyed a hospital in the border town of Vovchansk.

• In Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, Russian missiles killed four people, including a girl aged 10, and injured seven more, the governor, Oleg Kiper, said on Telegram. Ukraine’s energy ministry said two facilities in the south had been targeted in strikes during the night, causing power outages in two regions.

• In Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack on Wednesday killed three people, including two children, in the Kursk border region, the local governor said. The drone fired a rocket at a civilian car in a village in Korenevski district, the governor, Roman Starovoyt, said on Telegram.

• Blasts were reported in Ukraine’s north-eastern, southern and western regions on Thursday morning. Explosions were heard in the city of Kharkiv, its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said on Telegram. The Kharkiv attack left more than 200,000 consumers without power, Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said. There were also blasts in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to its governor, Ivan Fedorov. The governor of the Lviv region, Maksim Kozytskyi, said on Telegram that air defences were working in the area.

• The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called for more air defence supplies on Thursday after Russia used more than 40 missiles and 40 drones to deal damage to the country’s critical infrastructure, including substations and power-generating facilities, in five regions.

• The top US general in Europe has told Congress Ukraine will be outgunned 10 to one by Russia within a matter of weeks if more ammunition and weapons are not sent to Kyiv soon. “The Russians fire five times as many artillery shells at the Ukrainians than the Ukrainians are able to fire back. That will immediately go to 10 to one in a matter of weeks,” Gen Christopher Cavoli said. “We’re not talking about months. We’re not talking hypothetically.”

• Joe Biden on Wednesday urged the US House of Representatives to vote immediately on the $60bn Ukraine bill. “There’s overwhelming support for Ukraine among the majority of Democrats and Republicans. There should be a vote now,” the president told reporters. The funds passed the Senate but have languished for months in the House, where the speaker, Mike Johnson, has refused to bring a vote to the floor.

• Russia’s foreign ministry has criticised plans to hold a Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland as being motivated byelections in the US. The conference is to be held on 15-16 June and Swiss media have said Biden is expected to attend. “American Democrats, who need photos and videos of events that supposedly indicate their project ‘Ukraine’ is still afloat, are behind this,” the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state-run Tass news agency.

• Ukrainian politicians have sparked anger by scrapping a clause in a draft law that would have given soldiers serving for more than 36 months the possibility to be discharged. The clause was removed ahead of its second reading after pressure from the military. The reversal sparked anger across a society exhausted by years of war and risked sapping morale in the stretched armed forces.

• The EU’s top court has removed war-related sanctions against prominent billionaires Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman. The court of justice ruled that the European Council had not presented enough evidence to establish that the pair were involved in efforts that “undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.

• Eight Nordic and Baltic nations are pushing for more support for Ukraine. The Swedish foreign minister, Tobias Billström, said the country supported “an increased role for Nato in providing security related assistance to Ukraine”.

• Ukraine and UK signed a framework agreement to cooperate in the defence and arms production sector, officials said in Kyiv, part of a wartime effort to build up Ukraine’s domestic weapons industry by working with allies.

• China vowed not to accept “criticism or pressure” over its ties with Russia, after Washington warned that it will hold Beijing responsible if Moscow makes gains in Ukraine.