Increasingly high voltage around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant: In the area of the facility, “special observation” in the war between Ukraine and Russia, “military actions continue”, as the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told CNN. “The military actions continue and are increasing in intensity. The number of soldiers and military assets is increasing, heavy artillery is increasing,” he said from Dnipro, waiting to get to the plant.
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“Repeated power outages” were registered at the facility. Grossi will arrive at the plant, having already made a first visit since the conflict began. “I want to see the situation with my own eyes, I want to talk to those who are in charge, they are the Russians,” he says, referring to the “management”. “In a few hours we will cross the front line as we did last year. I will continue the dialogue with the aim of protecting the facility around the facility and saving us all from a nuclear accident with potentially catastrophic consequences.” The risk “is extremely high, the situation is completely unpredictable: we are in one war zone”.
YOU SAID – Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Schmigal confirmed that the US government will send Kyiv a new economic aid package worth $2,500 million. Funds will be channeled through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development project and will be used to pay doctors, pensioners, displaced persons and support low-income families.
“Since the beginning of the year – the government underlined – Ukraine has received almost $5 billion from the European Union and more than $2 billion from the United States.”
Ukraine has budgeted a budget deficit of more than 33.2 billion euros this year, and almost all of the government’s income will be used to improve the country’s military sector.
FRANCE, MORE AMMO FOR KIEV – Meanwhile, France will double its shipments of 155mm shells to Ukraine to 2,000 a month. French military minister Sebastien Lecornu told Le Figaro. The Ukrainian Army uses 155mm 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 planned to send to Ukraine in cooperation with Italy.
AMMUNITION RUSSIA – On the other side of the front, Russia’s Defense Ministry has said it will increase its ammunition production “seven to eightfold” by the end of the year. The announcement came 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 an interview with Russian state television on March 25 that Russia will soon produce “three times” more ammunition than the West is currently supplying to Ukraine.