Russian forces, bolstered by reserves, tightened control over the eastern town of Avdiyivka on Wednesday, but Kyiv forces are holding their ground, the Ukrainian military said. In other areas of the front, near Bakhmut and in the west of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian troops continued their counteroffensive actions.

Highlights of the war in Ukraine, day 624, LIVETEXT:

07:09Germany will deploy four Eurofighter fighter jets to Romania to support NATO’s air control mission starting in late November, a security source told Reuters, with the news agency saying the decision came weeks after Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube .

01:24Zelenskyi said that his people deserve to be in the European Union together with other free nations. “We already understand what further steps are necessary to move forward after the decision of the European Council and approach the key goal of our country’s accession to the EU,” he said.

00:57Germany will withdraw three Patriot air defense systems stationed in Poland after nearly a year, the defense ministry in Berlin announced on Wednesday.

00:02 Ukraine is at risk of economic collapse next year if its Western allies do not help it cover its huge budget deficit, and such an economic crisis will be “very, very traumatic not only for Ukraine, but for all of Europe,” he said. Politico. I, Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko

A brief summary of recent events:

• Ukraine accuses Russia of striking a civilian ship heading to a port in the Odesa region. The Ukrainian military accused Russia of ramming a civilian vessel entering a port in southern Odesa region on Wednesday, killing the captain and injuring four others.
• The European Commission decided on Wednesday to recommend to the European Council to start negotiations on joining the EU with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, countries that received the status of candidate countries last year.
• Russians are again “crying” about caring for the Republic of Moldova: it will become a victim of the West, it has followed the path of joining the EU and Romanianization.
• Ukraine’s accession to the EU would be a “disaster” for European agriculture, the president of the main French agricultural union, Arnaud Rousseau, reacted on Wednesday, after the European Commission recommended the start of accession negotiations with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.
• The Hungarian Parliament should ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO “as soon as possible”, the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday in Brussels.
• Ukraine sent Hungary a proposal to settle the dispute regarding the law on minorities. Kyiv offered Hungary a “detailed road map” for resolving differences between the two countries
• Russian bloggers claim that Ukrainian troops have moved armored vehicles across the Dnipro River on the left bank of the Kherson region and are continuing the offensive on this bank by a battalion group of light infantry, reports the Institute for the Study of War.
• The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, says that peace negotiations in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict should “exclude the capitulation of Ukraine.”
• Military cooperation between Russia and China is becoming “increasingly important”, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, insisting the two countries were not trying to create a Cold War-style alliance.
• A Russian deputy from Luhansk, a former separatist commander of the so-called People’s Republic, died after the car he was in was blown up.
• The head of the intelligence service of the Estonian army, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, in an interview with RBC Ukraine, says that another hard winter awaits Ukrainians and that Russia is withdrawing troops in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the east of the country.

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• Wednesday’s events related to Russian aggression were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro