Increasingly high voltage around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: in the area of the plant, ‘special observation’ in the war between Ukraine and Russia, “military actions continue”, as explained by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, to CNN. “The military actions continue and increase in intensity. The number of soldiers and military vehicles is increasing, the heavy artillery is increasing”, he said from Dnipro, waiting to reach the station.
“Repeated blackouts” have been recorded in the plant. Grossi will reach the plant after having already made a first visit since the beginning of the conflict. “I want to see the situation with my own eyes, I want to talk to whoever runs things there, it’s the Russians,” he says referring to “management”. “In a matter of hours we will cross the front line, as we did last year. I will continue the dialogue with the aim of having protection around the plant and preventing all of us from a nuclear accident with potentially catastrophic consequences”. The risk “is extremely high, the situation is totally unpredictable: we are in a war zone”.
US AID – Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmigal confirmed that the US administration will send Kiev a new economic aid package worth 2,500 million dollars. The funds will come through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development project, and will go to pay doctors, retirees, displaced people and help low-income families.
“Since the beginning of the year – underlined the government – Ukraine has received almost 5 billion dollars from the European Union and more than 2 billion dollars from the United States”.
Ukraine has estimated a budget deficit of more than 33.2 billion euros for this year and almost all the revenues received by the government will be used to improve the country’s military sector.
FRANCE, MORE AMMUNITION FOR KIEV – France meanwhile will double its supply of 155mm shells to Ukraine, bringing it to 2,000 a month. French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu told Le Figaro. The Ukrainian army uses 155 mm shells in the French Caesar self-propelled howitzers and the German Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers.
Lecornu also said, quoted by French TV channel BFM Business, that France would “very soon” deliver the SAMP/T air defense systems it had committed to send to Ukraine in a joint effort with Italy.
AMMUNITION RUSSIA – Across the front, Russia’s Defense Ministry has announced it will increase its ammunition production “seven to eight times” by the end of the year. The announcement was made during Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s tour of arms-producing factories in Russia’s Chelyabinsk and Kirov oblasts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a March 25 interview with Russian state television that Russia would soon produce “three times” more munitions than the West is currently supplying Ukraine.
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