French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to speed up the delivery of French military equipment and missiles to Ukraine, following a nearly two-hour phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Zelenskiy said Macron also agreed to help secure additional U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missiles from allied countries, as Ukraine faces a shortage of air-defence weapons amid intensified Russian airstrikes.

Macron condemned a Russian drone attack on a crowded shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih that killed at least 16 people and injured 130.