In Ukraine, fighting around the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut remains intense with both sides determined to hold their ground.
To advance, Ukraine desperately needs tanks of the type the UK has just announced it will send.
Poland is poised to send a squadron of German-made Leopard 2 tanks, but that needs Berlin’s approval. At the World Economic Forum, the Polish president expressed hope it would come soon.
“The pressure of the political and German political stage and German public opinion is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger,” said Andrzej Duda. “So I hope that the result of all that, and that the elements of all that, will result in this very, very, very, very needed decision.”
In another development the UN’s atomic agency, the IAEA, has finally started deploying experts at nuclear sites to ensure their safe operation. The idea is to leave a a group of experts behind in each location to support Ukrainian experts.
Ukraine has a total of four nuclear power plants with 16 reactors. One of them in Zaporizhzhia, the biggest in Europe, was taken over by Russian forces in the first months of the war and remains under their control.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said: “We will be working hand in hand with our Ukrainian hosts to facilitate some technical support, delivery of equipment, to make sure that all these facilities can continue running normally and without any problem.”
Ukraine also needs economic support and that is what EU finance ministers have been discussing.
They’re aiming to find ways to secure long-term, sustainable financial backing for the war-ravaged country.
Source : Euro News