Ukraine's army said holding the steelworks

Ukraine's army said holding the steelworks had delayed the transfer of 20,000 Russian troops to other parts of the country and stopped Moscow from quickly capturing the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian forces have managed to fight the huge Russian army for longer than many expected, fortified by weapons and cash from Western allies.

French President Emmanuel Macron told Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky Tuesday during a telephone call that arms deliveries from Paris would "increase in intensity" in the coming weeks.

Zelensky said the two leaders also discussed fuel supplies to Ukraine, ways to export Ukrainian agricultural products and Kyiv's application to join the European Union, which Macron has said could take decades.

After circling the capital Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, Moscow has focused increasingly on the eastern region of Donbas.

Ukrainian officials say Russian troops are withdrawing from around Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, to be redeployed there.

But Kyiv's gains have come at a high cost, with villages gutted and destroyed by bombs.

In Ruska Lozova, just north of Kharkiv, Rostislav Stepanenko recounted how he had gone back to collect some belongings but returned empty-handed and stunned by the incessant artillery fire.

Asked what he did for a living, he joked he was "trying to stay alive".