KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine will set up offices for arms exports and joint weapons production in Berlin and Copenhagen this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday. Kyiv is scaling up its burgeoning domestic defense industry with help from its Western partners as it fends off Russian forces in its fourth year of war with Moscow.

Russia said on Monday that its troops had advanced in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub that they have been trying to capture for over a year, but Ukraine said its forces were holding on.

The 7th Rapid Response Corps said that assault and special operations units blocked an effort to cut a supply route between Pokrovsk and nearby Rodynske..

Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Washington to supply the weapons to strike oil and energy facilities deep inside Russia.

The Pentagon has given the White House the green light to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles after assessing that it would not negatively impact US stockpiles, leaving the final political decision in President Donald Trump’s hands,

The Russian army made steady gains in Ukraine in October, as it focused attacks on the eastern Donetsk region, an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed.

Russian strikes have damaged nuclear substations in Ukraine, leading the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to issue a "critical" warning. Power to three nuclear power plants has been affected after Russian strikes on Thursday.

Ukraine’s military intelligence said it hit an important fuel pipeline in the Moscow region that supplies the Russian army.