By Riyaz ul Khaliq
ISTANBUL (AA) – Japan’s prime minister on Friday spoke to Ukraine’s president in the wake of the Kakhovka dam bursting in southern Ukraine, flooding nearby settlements.
Fumio Kishida “is thought to have told (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy that Tokyo will boost its financial and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported, citing an unnamed source.
The Japanese premier made an unannounced post-war trip to Ukraine on March 21, and last month Zelenskyy made a surprise to Japan to attend a G-7 summit.
Kishida was the last of the G-7 leaders to visit Ukraine after Russia launched its war against Kyiv in February 2022.
In Kyiv, Kishida pledged $30 million to Zelenskyy through NATO trust funds to help Ukraine acquire non-lethal equipment.
Japan had also promised assistance of more than $7 billion to Ukraine.
Early this week, an emergency was declared on both sides of the Kakhovka dam after it burst — one side is controlled by Russia, the other by Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine traded blame over the blast, which destroyed part of the dam that supplied water to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.