Defence Minister Peeni Henare has made the first visit by a New Zealand minister to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion, reaffirming the Pacific nation’s support for Ukraine’s resistance.

“Visiting Kyiv sends a strong message that … our support for the Ukrainian defensive effort against Russia’s illegal invasion is unwavering,” Henare said in a statement after holding bilateral talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov.

“We discussed New Zealand’s recent extension of the infantry training support mission in the UK for Ukrainian troops out to July 2023,” he added.

Henare also visited Poland, where he met Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, and expressed New Zealand’s condolences for the loss of life from the recent missile strike in Poland.

Ukraine’s national energy company announces planned blackouts in all of the country’s regions to lower consumption after the Russian attack damaged key infrastructure.

“Today, on November 20, planned blackouts will be applied in all regions of Ukraine from 8:00am [6:00 GMT] to midnight. No additional emergency shutdowns are expected,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.

The company added that it was working to restore the flow of energy from the damaged infrastructure. “This is difficult, sometimes taking longer than expected, but we find solutions, heal and maintain a balance in the power grid.”

A key adviser to the Ukrainian presidency has said the West is pressuring Ukraine to negotiate with Moscow, a move that amounts to capitulation.

“When you have the initiative on the battlefield, it’s slightly bizarre to receive proposals like: ‘You will not be able to do everything by military means anyway, you need to negotiate’,” Mykhaylo Podolyak told AFP.

This would mean that the country “that recovers its territories, must capitulate to the country that is losing”, he added.

Russia had not made “any direct proposal” to Kyiv for peace talks and was likely to use negotiations to “simply stall for time”, he said.

Ukraine will begin evacuating people who want to leave the recently liberated southern city of Kherson and its surrounding areas, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has announced.

A number of people expressed a wish to move away from Kherson and the area around Mykolaiv, about 65km (40 miles) to the northwest, citing damage to infrastructure by Russian forces that had made life extremely difficult.

Vereshchuk said the government had already made the necessary preparations for the evacuation. Among those who wanted to leave were the elderly and those who had been affected by Russian shelling, she said.

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Russia has reached an agreement with Iran to begin manufacturing hundreds of unmanned weaponised aircraft on Russian soil, The Washington Post has reported, citing intelligence seen by US and other Western security agencies.

The newspaper said the deal was finalised during a meeting in Iran in early November.

Russia and Iran are moving rapidly to transfer designs and key components that could allow production to begin within months, three officials familiar with the matter said.

The report comes after Iran confirmed it sold drones to Russia but said this was “months” before the start of the war in Ukraine.