The White House is set to announce more military aid for Ukraine worth up to $275m, the US defence secretary has said. 

Lloyd Austin said the support would “meet critical battlefield needs” and would include munitions for rocket systems, artillery and tank weapons. 

During a briefing in Laos, Mr Austin also explained the decision to supply Ukraine with anti-personnel landmines. 

“What we’ve seen most recently is, because the Russians have been so unsuccessful in the way that they have been fighting, they’ve kind of changed their tactics a bit and they don’t lead with their mechanised forces any more,” he said. 

“They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanised forces.”

Ukraine now needs weapons such as anti-personnel mines to slow Russia’s efforts on the ground, he said. 

“The landmines that we would look to provide them would be landmines that are not persistent – we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate, and that makes it far more safe eventually than the things that [the Ukrainians are] creating on their own.”