Ukraine’s Zelenskyy fires top security chief and prosecutor
As Russian troops advanced their offensive in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired his state security chief and attorney general on Sunday, citing hundreds of criminal trials for treason and collaboration by insiders. departments and other police agencies.
“In particular, more than 60 employees of the prosecutor’s office and the SBU (state security service) have remained in the occupied territory and work against our state,” Zelenskyy said.
“Such a set of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state and the recorded links between the Ukrainian security forces and the Russian special services raise very serious questions about their respective leaders,” he said in his late-night video address to the nation.
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Zelenskyy fired Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend and former business partner whom he had appointed to head the SBU. Bakanov had come under increasing criticism for security breaches since the war began; Last month, Politico cited several unnamed Ukrainian and Western sources as saying that Zelenskyy was seeking to replace him.
Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova was also appointed and replaced with her deputy Oleksiy Symonenko. Venediktova has helped lead war crimes investigations.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles hit industrial facilities early Sunday in Mykolaiv, a key shipbuilding center in southern Ukraine. Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said the missiles hit an infrastructure and industrial facility. Mykolaiv has faced regular Russian missile attacks in recent weeks as the Russians have sought to soften Ukrainian defenses.
The Russian military has declared the goal of isolating the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine up to the Romanian border. If successful, such an effort would deal a severe blow to Ukraine’s economy and trade, and allow Moscow to secure a land bridge to the breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova, which is home to a Russian military base.
Early in the campaign, Ukrainian forces repulse Russian attempts to capture Mykolaiv, which lies near the Black Sea coast between Russian-occupied Crimea and the main Ukrainian port of Odessa. Since then, Russian troops have stopped their attempts to advance on the city, but have continued to target both Mykolaiv and Odessa with regular missile strikes.
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Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday that Russian missiles destroyed a stockpile of Harpoon anti-ship missiles delivered to Ukraine by NATO allies, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
The Russians, fearing a Ukrainian counteroffensive, also tried to strengthen their positions in the Kherson region near Crimea and in part of the northern Zaporizhzhia region, which they seized at the initial stage of the war.
“Given the pressures on Russian manpower, the reinforcement from the south as the fighting for Donbas continues indicates the seriousness with which Russian commanders view the threat,” the British Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.
For now, the Russian military has focused on trying to take control of the industrial heartland of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where the most capable and well-equipped Ukrainian forces are located.
Ukraine says its forces still retain control of two small villages in the Luhansk region, one of two provinces that make up Donbas, and are fending off Russian attempts to push deeper into the second, the Donetsk region.
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The Ukrainian Army General Staff said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops thwarted Russian attempts to advance on Sloviansk, Ukraine’s key stronghold of Donetsk, and attacks elsewhere in the region.
However, Russian officials are urging their troops to produce even more territorial gains. During a visit to the front lines on Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued an order “to further intensify unit actions in all operational areas.”
The Russian military said it has targeted Ukrainian troops and artillery positions in Donbass in the latest series of attacks, including a US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launcher. The Russian claims cannot be independently verified.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, responded to Ukrainian officials’ remarks that Kyiv might attack the bridge linking Crimea and Russia, warning that it would have devastating consequences for Ukrainian leaders.
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Ukraine’s Zelenskyy fires top security chief and prosecutor
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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