Ukraine’s defence minister says he has discussed planning for the next meeting of the Ramstein Group, an alliance of Nato, the EU and other countries that back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, with US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin.

Rustem Umerov also said Austin reaffirmed the “readiness of the United States to provide Ukraine with everything it needs to effectively fight the enemy” during a conversation about continued security assistance.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion was launched in 2022, the US gathered like-minded nations at the sprawling American air base in Ramstein, western Germany, establishing a group of now about 50 countries that meet regularly to match Kyiv’s arms requests with pledges of donors.

The Biden administration is rushing military equipment to Ukraine in a last-ditch effort to shore up the country’s defenses before Donald Trump assumes the US presidency in January.

At the start of the month, the state department announced $725m in assistance, which will include Stinger anti-air missiles, anti-drone weapons, artillery shells and long-range Himars rocket munitions, and anti-armour missiles, as well as spare parts and other assistance to repair damaged equipment from US stocks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, facing manpower shortages and growing territorial losses, has indicated that he may be open to negotiations with Russia, though he has said this has to be from a position of strength, which means security guarantees from the west and more weapons.

In this story, the Guardian’s central and eastern European correspondent, Shaun Walker, writes that there is cautious optimism about Donald Trump’s election in Kyiv as many Ukrainians disapprove of the Biden administration’s recent handling of the war.

As many Ukrainians felt the red lines and “escalation management” of the Biden administration had disastrous consequences on the battlefield.

Ukraine has become increasingly exhausted after nearly three years of full-scale war, and the number of people who say they would consider territorial concessions to stop the conflict is increasing.

“About a third are against any deal, a third want a deal in any circumstances including through concessions to Russia, and a third are not sure. They want the war to end but not at any price,” said the political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko in an interview in Kyiv.In recent months, Kyiv has been suffering from an acute personnel shortage as its mobilisation drive flounders and the army struggles to replenish ranks. This has led to the US administration making the unusual move of publicly calling on Kyiv to lower the mobilisation age from 25 to 18 years old. Zelenskyy has ruled out the move, which would be deeply unpopular in Ukrainian society.

Among Zelenskyy’s inner circle, there is an increasing awareness that, as the army struggles to hold back Russia on the frontline, some kind of negotiations will be necessary soon. But they fear that without solid security guarantees from the west, a ceasefire would be meaningless.

Despite Trump’s optimism about a possible deal, it is not clear that Putin has any interest in negotiations at the moment. He has laid out his demands for ending the war, which include Russian control over the Crimean peninsula and four regions Moscow laid claim to in 2022, including parts of Ukraine not currently controlled by Russian troops. Putin also wants a ban on Ukraine joining Nato, as well as its disarmament. Most of these conditions would be absolutely unacceptable for any Ukrainian leader to sign.

In recent weeks, a number of sources close to decision-making circles in Moscow have told the Guardian that they did not see any desire on Putin’s part to make real concessions for the sake of peace.

Trump calls for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Ukraine as Zelenskyy reveals frontline casualties