McEntee announces new 40 million euro donation for Ukraine
Of the €40m announced today, more than €26m will go toward humanitarian assistance, while almost €14m is earmarked for long-term development and peacebuilding measures.
Ireland is stepping up its support for Ukraine with an additional €40 million in aid as Russia’s war grinds on, Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee has announced.
The new package comes on top of the €25m already committed by Ireland in February. Minister McEntee unveiled the latest funding during a visit to Kyiv.
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Of the €40m announced today, more than €26m will go toward humanitarian assistance, while almost €14m is earmarked for long-term development and peacebuilding measures.
Another €2m from the overall package will go to Moldova to help it deal with pressures linked to the war in Ukraine.
The €25m pledged in February was directed to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund, which is intended to bolster the country’s critical energy infrastructure.
Zelensky says US talks were constructive
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia responded to his proposal for an Easter truce with fresh airstrikes today, even as he described new talks with US intermediaries aimed at ending the four-year war as “positive.”
Mr Zelensky joined remote talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – and US Senator Lindsey Graham.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also took part in the call, against a backdrop of continued friction between Washington and some of its allies in the military alliance.
In his nightly video address afterwards, Mr Zelensky thanked the United States for its efforts to help secure peace and said the Ukrainian and US sides had agreed to reinforce a document setting out US security guarantees for any eventual peace agreement.
“This is precisely what could pave the way for a reliable end to the war,” Mr Zelensky said.
Five killed in Ukraine
A Russian drone strike killed four people in Ukraine’s central Cherkasy region today, according to the regional governor, while a woman was also killed in Lutsk.
“We have four dead in Zolotonosha district. This happened in an open area during an air alert,” the head of the Cherkasy region’s military administration, Igor Taburets, said on Telegram.
The deaths came as waves of Russian drones hit Ukraine overnight and into this morning, killing a woman and wrecking a postal terminal, Ukrainian officials said.
A photograph released by Ukraine’s Nova Poshta postal company showed a warehouse engulfed in flames in the western city of Lutsk, with heavy smoke billowing from the roof.
Russia deployed 339 drones in the overnight assault, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Facebook.
“We proposed a ceasefire for Easter — in response, we’re getting ‘shaheds’,” he said, referring to the Iranian-designed drones used by Russia.
He added that food warehouses were also destroyed.
With the number of drones reaching about 700 over 24 hours, official data showed this was the second such intense attack in the past eight days.
During an assault on 24 March, Russia launched more than 900 drones in 24 hours.
“Throughout the day, the vast majority of drones flew in from the south-east, heading west,” the air force said on the Telegram app.
Later in the morning, a drone strike killed a woman and seriously injured two others when a civilian car was hit in the frontline region of Kherson, the local military administration said.
Six people were also wounded in the Poltava region, while two more were injured in the Khmelnytskyi region, officials said.
The EU remains united, resolute and practical in its unwavering support for Ukraine.
This is about defending the principles that underpin peace in Europe, a message reinforced in Kyiv yesterday, where we heard directly from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and FM Andrii Sybiha.
— Helen McEntee TD (@HMcEntee) April 1, 2026
The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had taken full control of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, indicating they may have seized a small remaining strip of territory that had stayed outside their grasp since 2022.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield claim, and a Ukrainian military spokesperson said there had been no changes on that front in the past six months.
More than 99% of Luhansk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia declared annexed in 2022 – a move Kyiv and most Western countries have rejected as an illegal land grab – has long been in Russian hands.
“Units of the ‘West’ military grouping have completed the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement, using Moscow’s preferred name for the region.
Luhansk is one of two regions – together with Donetsk – that form the broader industrial Donbas area.
The Kremlin repeated its demand that Ukrainian troops pull out of the section of Donetsk still outside Moscow’s control in order to end what it called the “hot phase” of the war, a condition Kyiv has repeatedly dismissed as absurd.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also said its troops had captured the village of Verkhnya Pysarivka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Boikove in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine.
Reuters could not independently verify those battlefield claims.
The Ukrainian leader is due to hold a video call with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss negotiations with Russia, which have stalled because of the war in Iran.
“Today will be a pretty busy diplomatic day,” Mr Zelensky said on social media.
Additional reporting AFP/Reuters