The United States said it would give Ukraine a new military aid package worth $200 million as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy traveled to NATO's headquarters in Belgium to press for more support for his war-ravaged country ahead of the onset of the cold season.

"I'm proud that the United States will announce its latest security assistance package for Ukraine, valued at $200 million," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said alongside Zelenskiy at the opening of a meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, also known as the Ramstein format, which consists of some 50 countries that back Kyiv in its war against Russia.

Austin said the new package will consist of air-defense, rocket, and artillery ammunition as well as anti-tank systems, among other things, adding that Washington "will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes."

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told the Defense Contact Group that his country will deliver the first U.S.-made F-16 warplanes to Ukraine in the spring of next year. In August, Zelenskiy said Denmark had approved sending 19 of the advanced warplanes to Ukraine.

Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said after meeting with Zelenskiy that Belgium will send F-16s to Ukraine from 2025 and provide their maintenance.

"Belgium from 2025 on will be in a position to supply F-16s to Ukraine," De Croo told a news conference without elaborating on the number of planes Belgium intends to send.

Zelenskiy earlier on October 11 held talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during his first visit at the alliance's headquarters in Belgium since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskiy, whose visit also came ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers and a gathering of the NATO-Ukraine Council, said Ukraine needs more weapons to protect civilians, its energy infrastructure, and its food exports.

"What we are seeing now is that [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin is preparing once again to use winter as a weapon of war, meaning attacking the energy system, the gas infrastructure. We need to prevent that," Stoltenberg said after the meeting.

The NATO-Ukraine Council was established at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July and serves as a platform for exchanges during crisis situations and aims to promote deeper cooperation until Ukraine can fulfil conditions for NATO membership.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is also to attend the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council in the afternoon where he is due to present the alliance a list of Ukraine's priorities.

Britain's Defense Ministry on October 11 said the International Fund for Ukraine -- a group of countries including Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden -- would announce in Brussels a 100 million pound ($122.70 million) package to support Ukraine's armed forces including equipment to clear minefields.

Zelenskiy on October 10 visited Romania, Ukraine's NATO neighbor, where he held talks in Bucharest with his counterpart, Klaus Iohannis.

Zelenskiy said the two sides discussed military aid for Ukraine, and that "there will soon be very good news about artillery and air defense" and confirmed that a center for training Ukrainian pilots on U.S.-made F-16 warplanes will be established in Romania.

He said the two sides discussed military aid for Ukraine and that "there will soon be very good news about artillery and air defense" and confirmed that a center for training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s will be established in Romania.

On the battlefield, Russian forces have stepped up their attacks on Avdiyivka, an industrial town in the eastern region of Donetsk with a prewar population of around 31,000 people that has now shrunk to an estimated 2,000, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in their daily bulletin on October 11.

The Russians, with up to three battalions supported by tanks and armored vehicles, intensified offensive actions in the Avdiyivka, Tonenko, Keramik, and Pervomayske areas of Donetsk, the military said.

The head of the presidential administration in Kyiv, Andriy Yermak, reported "massive attacks by Russian artillery" on the strategically important Avdiyivka, located just north of the city of Donetsk, seized by Russian-backed forces in 2014.

/RFE/RL