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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will visit the port city of Odesa on Friday to observe efforts to clear the way for Ukraine to export grain to ease the global food shortage, which has worsened due to the war. On Thursday, Guterres met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Lviv. Follow FRANCE 24’s live coverage of the Ukraine crisis. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
12:20am: Biden administration readies about $800 mln in additional security aid for Ukraine, say sources
President Joe Biden’s administration is readying about $800 million of additional military aid to Ukraine and could announce it as soon as Friday, three sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Biden would authorize the assistance using his Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the president to authorize the transfer of excess weapons from U.S. stocks, the sources told Reuters.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that an announcement could slip into next week, cautioning that weapons packages can change in value before they are announced.
8:45pm: Russian ammunition depot ablaze near Ukraine border
Two Russian villages were evacuated on Thursday after a fire broke out at an ammunition depot near the border with Ukraine, local authorities said.
“An ammunition depot caught fire near the village of Timonovo,” less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Ukrainian border in Belgorod province, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement.
No casualties were reported, but residents of Timonovo and the nearby village of Soloti were “moved to a safe distance”, he said, adding that authorities were investigating the cause of the fire.
6:31pm: Erdogan says he discussed ways to end Ukraine conflict with Guterres, Zelensky
Turkish President Erdogan said he discussed possible ways of ending the war between Ukraine and Russia in a trilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky and UN chief Guterres.
He also said they discussed the exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia, and that he would later raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We attach great importance to this issue…of what happened to the exchange of these captives,” Erdogan told reporters at a joint press conference in Lviv.
6:05pm: Zaporizhzhia plant must be demilitarised, says Guterres
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the demilitarisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and said he was gravely concerned by the situation inside and around the facility.
Speaking to reporters in Lviv following talks with Ukrainian President Zelensky and Turkish President Erdogan, the UN chief called for the withdrawal of all military equipment and personnel from the plant.
“The facility must not be used as part of any military operation. Instead, agreement is urgently needed to reestablish Zaporizhzhia’s purely civilian infrastructure and to ensure the safety of the area,” said Guterres.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling the nuclear plant, which was captured by Russian forces in early March.
4:52pm: Zelensky seeking formulas for defusing Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant crisis
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited UN chief Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks “because he was impressed by their persuading (of) Russian President Vladimir Putin to set up the grain export operation”, explains FRANCE 24’s Turkey correspondent Jasper Mortimer, referring to the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
“Erdogan is known to have a certain influence with Putin, and I think Zelensky and Guterres will explore with Erdogan possible formulas for defusing the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant,” Mortimer added.
3:48pm: UN must ensure security of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, says Zelensky
Following talks with visiting UN chief Antonio Guterres, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the UN must ensure the security of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occupied by Russian forces.
“Particular attention was paid to the topic of Russia’s nuclear blackmail at the Zaporizhzhia NPP. This deliberate terror on the part of the aggressor can have global catastrophic consequences for the whole world,” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The UN must therefore “ensure the security of this strategic object, its demilitarisation and complete liberation from Russian troops”, Zelensky added.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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