Zelenskiy lauds Biden over ‘unprecedented’ aid

Bloomberg

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his gratitude to US President Joe Biden for what he called “another unprecedented security aid package” to help the country defend itself against Russia’s invasion.
Biden’s administration earlier announced $4.5 billion in additional direct budgetary support and $1 billion more in military aid, the largest drawdown from existing inventories since the war began, according to the Pentagon.
“Every dollar of such aid is a step towards defeating the aggressor,” Zelenskiy said in a tweet. A Pentagon official said as many as 80,000 Russians may have been killed or wounded in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, amid continuing safety concerns around the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia — the world’s largest — the Institute for the Study of War said that Russian forces have dug trenches in and around the facility.
Kremlin officials have accused Ukraine of repeatedly attacking the plant, while Ukrainian officials have said that Russian forces are attacking their positions from within it and essentially using it as a shield, according to the ISW’s latest report.
Shelling at and around the Zaporizhzhia plant has caused “significant damage” to some of its infrastructure, including close to dry storage for spent nuclear fuel inside the plant’s perimeter, European Union Energy Commission Kadri Simson said, condemning Russian forces for what she called “reckless behavior.” Simson said the EU’s radioactivity monitoring systems don’t indicate any increase of radiation in the bloc or Ukraine, but said any military activity near the plant is “unacceptably dangerous.”
Russian forces also continued ground assaults to the northwest and southwest of the eastern city of Donetsk, the Washington-based institute said. The city of Kharkiv in the northeast was shelled overnight, according to local authorities.