US announces $775 million military aid package

The US for the first time on Friday said it will give Ukraine Scan Eagle surveillance drones, mine-resistant vehicles, anti-armour rounds and howitzer weapons to help Ukrainian forces regain territory and mount a counteroffensive against Russian invaders.

A new $775 million aid package will include 15 Scan Eagles, 40 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles known as MRAPs with mine-clearing rollers, and 2,000 anti-armour rounds that can help Ukraine troops move forward in the south and east, where Russian forces have placed mines.

The US is looking to help shape and arm the Ukrainian force of the future as the war drags on. 

Turkey's president and the UN chief met with Zelenskyy on Thursday in a high-stakes bid to ratchet down a war raging for nearly six months, boost desperately needed grain exports and secure the safety of Europe's biggest nuclear power plant.

The gathering, held far from the front lines in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the Polish border, marked the first visit to Ukraine by Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan since the outbreak of the war, and the second by UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres.

Erdogan has positioned himself as a go-between in efforts to stop the fighting. While Turkey is a member of NATO which backs Ukraine in the war its wobbly economy is reliant on Russia for trade, and the country has tried to steer a middle course.

At the meetings, Turkey agreed to help rebuild Ukraine's infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and Zelenskyy asked Guterres to seek UN access to Ukrainian citizens deported to Russia, according to the Ukrainian president's Website. 

Zelenskyy also requested UN help in freeing captured Ukrainian soldiers and medics.

On the battlefield, meanwhile, at least 11 people were killed and 40 wounded in heavy Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's Kharkiv region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Russia's military claimed that it struck a base for foreign mercenaries in Kharkiv, killing 90. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side. Heightening international tensions, Russia deployed warplanes carrying state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to the country's Kaliningrad region, an enclave surrounded by two NATO nations.