Zelenskyy says Western firms helping Russia, Putin says 'Ukraine ours'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Western firms of supplying Russia with "machine tools" used to make weapons.

He said on Saturday that companies from Germany, Czechia, South Korea and Japan were among them, as well as one company "supplying a small number of components from the United States."

Ukraine has repeatedly signaled its allies have not done enough to sanction Russia and curb its supply chains since the start of the conflict in 2022, saying it has found Western components in drones and missiles sent by Moscow.

"The Russian Federation receives machine tools from some countries - machine tools that they use to manufacture weapons," Zelenskyy said.

"We have passed on all this information to all countries, our partners, everyone. We strongly urge everyone to impose sanctions on these companies."

Meanwhile on the battlefield, the TASS news agency reported on Saturday that Russian troops had captured the small settlement of Zaporizhzhya in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Other news agencies did not immediately verify the reports.  

The small village of Zaporizhzhya, which had a population of 200 before the conflict, is near the strategic city of Pokrovsk, where fierce battles have happened in recent months. Pokrovsk is a crucial transport hub in the east of Ukraine.

As the Russian military continues its push, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that his advancing forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy to help carve out a buffer zone along the border.

Ukraine's foreign minister denounced the statements as evidence of Russian "disdain" for U.S. peace efforts and said Moscow was bent on seizing more territory and killing more Ukrainians.

Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99 percent of the Luhansk region, over 70 percent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and fragments of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Asked about fresh Russian advances, Putin told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum that he considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people and "in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours".

Putin said Moscow wanted Ukraine to accept the reality on the ground if there was to be a chance of peace.

"We have a saying, or a parable," Putin said. "Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours."

Zelenskyy said commanders had discussed action in Ukraine's northern Sumy region and that Russia had "various plans and intentions, completely mad as always. We are holding them back and eliminating these killers, defending our Sumy region."

While doubts remain over U.S. commitment to helping Ukraine, Zelenskyy has called on Western partners to allocate 0.25 percent of their GDP to help Kyiv ramp up weapons production.

He said Ukraine was in talks with Denmark, Norway, Germany, Canada, the UK and Lithuania to launch joint weapon production.