Gunmen wearing balaclavas ambushed a prison van in northern France on Tuesday to free a drug dealer known as “The Fly,” killing two prison guards, severely wounding three and triggering a major police manhunt.

The brazen, morning attack at a toll booth in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France underlines the growing threat of drug crime across Europe, the world’s No.1 cocaine market, Reuters reported.

It came on the same day that France’s Senate released a major report on drug trafficking, warning that the country faces a “tipping point” from rising narco violence that represents “a threat to the fundamental interests of the nation.”

The fugitive inmate, named Mohamed Amra, is a 30-year-old drug dealer from northern France, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office and police sources.

He had been convicted of burglary by a court in Evreux on May 10 and was being held at the Val de Reuil prison, Reuters reported.

Amra had also been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

A police source in Marseille told Reuters Amra was a drug dealer with ties to the city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.

Images on social media showed gunmen in balaclavas circling near an SUV that was in flames. The SUV appeared to have been rammed into the front of the prison van.

Amra’s lawyer, Hugues Vigier, told BFM TV that the violence of the incident did not correspond with the person he knew. He said Amra had tried to escape from prison on Sunday by sawing at the bars of his cell.

“This element suggests that there was an escape attempt in preparation,” Vigier said.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said a major manhunt had been launched, with several hundred officers involved.

Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said the prison van was attacked while Amra was being driven to meet an investigating judge in Rouen. He said two of the injured officers were in critical condition.

“Absolutely everything will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” he told BFM TV. “These are people for whom life means nothing. They will be arrested, judged and punished according to the crime they committed.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in the first visit to Ukraine by a senior U.S. official since Congress passed a long-delayed $61 billion military aid package for the country last month, Reuters reported.

The previously undisclosed trip aims to show U.S. solidarity with Ukraine as it struggles to fend off heavy Russian bombardment on its northeastern border.

Blinken, who arrived in Kyiv by train early on Tuesday morning, hopes to “send a strong signal of reassurance to the Ukrainians who are obviously in a very difficult moment,” said a U.S. official who briefed reporters traveling with Blinken on condition of anonymity.

“The Secretary’s mission here is really to talk about how our supplemental assistance is going to be executed in a fashion to help shore up their defenses (and) enable them to increasingly take back the initiative on the battlefield,” the official said.

Artillery, long-range missiles known as ATACMS and air defense interceptors approved by President Joe Biden on April 24 were already reaching the Ukrainian forces, the official said.

Blinken will reassure Ukrainian officials including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of enduring U.S. support and deliver a speech focused on Ukraine’s future, the official said.

Kyiv has been on the back foot on the battlefield for months as Russian troops have slowly advanced, mainly in the Donetsk region to the south, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortages of troop manpower and artillery shells. Russia’s forces hold a significant advantage in manpower and munitions.

On Monday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington was trying to accelerate “the tempo of the deliveries” of weapons to Ukraine to help it reverse its disadvantage, read the report.

“The delay put Ukraine in a hole and we’re trying to help them dig out of that hole as rapidly as possible,” Sullivan said, adding that a fresh package of weapons was going to be announced this week.

EXPANDING THE FIGHTING

Russia now controls about 18% of Ukraine and has been gaining ground since the failure of Kyiv’s 2023 counter-offensive to make serious inroads against Russian troops dug in behind deep minefields.

Moscow’s troops entered Ukraine near its second largest city of Kharkiv on Friday, opening a new, northeastern front in a war that has for almost two years been largely fought in the east and south. The advance could draw some of Kyiv’s depleted forces away from the east, where Russia has been advancing.

“They (the Russians) are clearly throwing everything they have in the east,” said the U.S. official.

Economic and political reforms being undertaken by Kyiv will pave the way for the country to join the European Union and eventually NATO, the official said.

While the U.S.-led defense alliance is not likely to admit Ukraine any time soon, individual members are reaching bilateral security agreements with Kyiv. Talks on a U.S.-Ukraine agreement are “in the final stages” and will conclude ahead of the July NATO summit in Washington, the U.S. official said.

The Group of Seven wealthy nations signed a joint declaration at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July last year committing to establish “long-term security commitments and arrangements” with Ukraine that would be negotiated bilaterally, Reuters reported.

Kyiv says the arrangements should contain important and concrete security commitments, but that the agreements would in no way replace its strategic goal of joining NATO. The Western alliance regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as an attack on all under its Article Five clause.

The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state rose to 143, up from 136 on the day before, the local civil defense government body said on Sunday, as rains continue to pour on the state, Reuters reported.

Another 125 people remain unaccounted for in the state, where rivers are reporting rising levels. Weather service Metsul called the situation “extremely worrying.”

On Saturday evening the government announced around 12.1 billion reais ($2.34 billion) in emergency spending to deal with the crisis that has displaced more than 538,000 people in the state, out of a population of around 10.9 million.

With this new money, more than 60 billion reais in federal funds has already been made available to the state, said the federal government in a statement on Saturday.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the state will rebuild what was destroyed, read the report.

“We know that not everything can be recovered, mothers have lost their children and children have lost their mothers,” said Lula on social media X, in a statement to mark Mother’s Day.

On Saturday, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement, saying that his administration is in contact with Brazil’s government to provide assistance.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the people impacted by this tragedy and the first responders working to rescue and provide medical care to families and individuals,” said Biden.

More rain fell on Sunday and is expected on Monday. Less than two weeks after the rains began, the state is again on alert with the risk of water rising once more to record levels on the Guaiba lake, near the capital Porto Alegre, Reuters reported.

The state is at a geographical meeting point between tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a weather pattern with periods of intense rains or drought.

Local scientists believe the pattern has been intensifying due to climate change.