Ukraine is about to nominate a brand new protection minister after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced the departure of Oleksii Reznikov on Sunday.
The announcement, calling for “new approaches” a 12 months and a half into Russia’s invasion, got here hours after Ukraine fought off an assault by Russian drones within the southern Odessa area Sunday that hit a Danube port on the border with NATO member Romania.
“Oleksii Reznikov has been through more than 550 days of full-scale war,” Zelenskyy stated in his every day night handle.
“I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society at large.”
He nominated Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar who has been head of the State Property Fund since final 12 months, to exchange Reznikov – topic to approval by Ukraine’s parliament.
“Now Rustem Umerov should be the head of the (defense) ministry,” Zelenskyy stated in his night handle. “I expect parliament to support this candidate.”
News of Reznikov’s removing comes with Kyiv’s counteroffensive underway and Ukraine’s common push in opposition to corruption in response to EU requests.
It additionally paves the best way for a serious change in Ukraine’s protection circles.
Reznikov, a 57-year-old lawyer with little army expertise, has turn out to be one of many best-known faces of Kyiv’s struggle effort.
During the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has been rocked by some corruption scandals.
In January, Reznikov saved his job however his deputy was compelled to resign after the Defense Ministry was accused of signing meals contracts at costs two to 3 occasions larger than present charges for fundamental foodstuffs.
Russian drone assaults
Russia, in the meantime, continued its army marketing campaign in opposition to Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Moscow has launched assaults on targets within the Black Sea and the Danube River for weeks now, since pulling out of a key deal that allowed the secure passage of ships carrying grain.
This newest assault got here on the eve of a summit in Russia between President Vladimir Putin and Turkish chief Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who hopes to revive the grain deal.
Ukraine stated Russia had hit the Odesa area with a barrage of Iranian-made Shahed drones.
But Kyiv additionally stated that among the drones hit the Danube space, wounding no less than two individuals in assaults on “civilian industrial” infrastructure.
Russia’s military stated it had focused “fuel storage” services within the Ukrainian port of Reni, which lies on the Danube river that separates Ukraine from Romania.
Moscow has focused Reni and the Danube port of Ismail – each close to Romania and throughout the war-torn nation from preventing hotspots – a number of occasions over the previous few weeks.
Reni, which additionally lies near Moldova, is each a sea and river port and an vital transport hub.
Bucharest’s Defense Ministry condemned the assaults as “in deep contradiction with the rules of international humanitarian law.” But it harassed that the assaults had not posed any direct risk to Romanian territory.
President Maia Sandu of neighboring Moldova additionally denounced the “brutal” assault.
Ukrainian breakthrough in south
The Odessa area assaults got here as Kyiv has claimed some successes in its counteroffensive on the southern entrance this week.
On Wednesday, Kyiv stated it had recaptured the village of Robotyne, calling it a strategic victory that may pave the best way for its forces to push deeper into Russian positions in the direction of Moscow-annexed Crimea.
Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, main the southern counteroffensive, instructed The Guardian newspaper this weekend that Kyiv’s military has made an vital breakthrough by breaching Russian strains close to Zaporizhzhia.
“We are now between the first and second defensive lines,” Tarnavskiy – who led Ukrainian troops to liberate the southern metropolis of Kherson – instructed the U.Okay. paper.
Heavily mined territory had slowed Ukrainian troops, he added, saying sappers had cleared a route by foot and at night time.
The paper quoted him as saying that Kyiv’s forces had been now again on autos and that Russia had redeployed troops to the realm.
“But sooner or later, the Russians will run out of all the best soldiers,” Tarnavskiy stated.
“Everything is ahead of us.”
At the identical time, he admitted troublesome losses, saying that “we are losing the strongest and best.”
Moscow’s recruitment drive
Russia has not introduced one other mobilization, seen as an unpopular measure, however has led an lively marketing campaign to draw extra males into the army as its Ukraine offensive drives on right into a nineteenth month.
Ex-president and Security Council chairman Dmitry Medvedev stated Sunday that Moscow had recruited 280,000 individuals into the military because the begin of the 12 months, TASS news company reported.
“Part of them were in the reserves, part of them volunteers and other categories,” he stated throughout a go to to the Far Eastern Russian island of Sakhalin.
In August, Medvedev stated the military had recruited round 230,000 individuals because the begin of the 12 months.
AFP is just not capable of independently confirm these numbers.
In September final 12 months, the Kremlin made a U-turn on guarantees to not announce a army draft, asserting a partial call-up to make up for losses on the Ukrainian entrance that led to the recruitment of 300,000 males.
But the announcement additionally triggered one other wave of emigration from Russia, with a whole bunch of hundreds believed to have fled overseas.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
