UPDATE - Japan to pay $5M to Ukraine after Kakhovka dam blast

UPDATES WITH JAPAN'S FRESH AID TO UKRAINE AFTER DAM BURST; CHANGES HEADER, DECK

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Japan will grant $5 million in fresh aid to Ukraine following the Kakhovka dam collapse, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday.

The aid was announced after Kishida held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"Any attempt to change the status quo by force must not be accepted," Kishida told Zelenskyy, Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

The Japanese premier made an unannounced post-war trip to Ukraine on March 21 and last month Zelenskyy paid a surprise visit to Japan to attend a Group of Seven summit.

Kishida was the last of the G-7 leaders to visit Ukraine after Moscow 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 in southern Ukraine's Kherson region after it burst – one side is controlled by Russia and 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.