Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Russia is preparing for the next stage of its offensive in Ukraine, a Ukrainian military official said, after Moscow said its forces would step up military operations in “all operational areas”.
As Western deliveries of long-range arms begin to help Ukraine on the battlefield, Russian rockets and missiles have pounded cities in strikes that Kyiv says have killed dozens in recent days.
Buildings destroyed by military strikes are seen, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in northern Saltivka, one of the most damaged residential areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine on 17th July. PICTURE: Reuters/Nacho Doce.
“It is not only missile strikes from the air and sea,” Vadym Skibitskyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, said late on Saturday. “We can see shelling along the entire line of contact, along the entire front line. There is an active use of tactical aviation and attack helicopters.
“Clearly preparations are now underway for the next stage of the offensive.”
UKRAINE’S PRESIDENT FIRES SPY CHIEF AND TOP STATE PROSECUTOR
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday abruptly fired the head of Ukraine’s powerful domestic security agency, the SBU, and the state prosecutor general, citing dozens of cases of collaboration with Russia by officials in their agencies.
The sackings of SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelenskiy, and Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, who has played a key role in the prosecution of Russian war crimes, were announced in executive orders on the President’s website.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a joint news briefing with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (not seen), as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 11th July. PICTURE: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko
The firings are easily the biggest political sackings since Russia invaded on 24th February, forcing the entire Ukrainian state machine to focus on the war effort.
In a Telegram post, Zelenskiy said he had fired the top officials because it had come to light that many members of their agencies had collaborated with Russia, a problem he said had touched other agencies as well.
He said 651 cases of alleged treason and collaboration had been opened against prosecutorial and law enforcement officials, and that more than 60 officials from Bakanov and Venediktova’s agencies were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied territories.
The sheer number of treason cases lays bare the huge challenge of Russian infiltration faced by Ukraine as it battles Moscow in what it says is a fight for survival.
“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state…pose very serious questions to the relevant leaders,” Zelenskiy said.
“Each of these questions will receive a proper answer,” he said.
Russian troops have captured swathes of Ukraine’s south and east during an invasion that has killed thousands, displaced millions and destroyed cities.
It remains unclear how the southern, Russian-occupied region of Kherson fell so quickly, in contrast to the fierce resistance around Kyiv that forced Russia eventually to withdrew to focus on capturing the industrial Donbas heartland in the east.
In his nightly speech to the nation, Zelenskiy noted the recent arrest on suspicion of treason of the SBU’s former head overseeing the region of Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 that Kyiv and the West still view as Ukrainian land.
Zelenskiy said he had fired the top security official at the start of the invasion, a decision he said had now been shown to be justified.
“Sufficient evidence has been collected to report this person on suspicion of treason. All his criminal activities are documented,” he said.
Bakanov was appointed to head the SBU in 2019, one of an array of new faces who rose to prominence after Zelenskiy, a former comedian, won election earlier that year.
Zelenskiy appointed Oleksiy Symonenko as the new prosecutor general in a separate executive order that was also published on the President’s site.
The Ukrainian military said Russia appeared to be regrouping units for an offensive toward Sloviansk, a symbolically important city held by Ukraine in the eastern region of Donetsk.
The British defence ministry said on Sunday that Russia was also reinforcing defences across areas it occupies in southern Ukraine after pressure from Ukrainian forces and pledges from Ukrainian leaders to drive Russia out.
Ukraine says at least 40 people have been killed in Russian shelling of urban areas since Thursday as the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 24th February intensifies.
Dozens of relatives and local residents attended the funeral of four-year-old Liza Dmytrieva in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Sunday. The girl was killed in a missile strike on central Vinnytsia on Thursday that killed 24 people, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Rockets hit the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region on Friday night, killing three people including a 70-year-old woman and wounding three others, said regional Governor Oleh Synehubov.
“Three people lost their lives, why? What for? Because Putin went mad?” said Raisa Shapoval, 83, a distraught resident sitting in the ruins of her home.
To the south, more than 50 Russian Grad rockets pounded the city of Nikopol on the Dnipro River, killing two people who were found in the rubble, Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
Eight years on
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was continuing to sow grief and death on Ukrainian soil eight years on from the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on 17th July, 2014. International investigators have said the plane was downed by a Russian surface-to-air missile likely fired by Russian-backed militia in the region.
Zelenskiy said his thoughts were with relatives of the dead and that nothing would go unpunished. “Every criminal will be brought to justice!” he wrote on Twitter.
Moscow, which calls the invasion a “special military operation” to demilitarise its neighbour and root out nationalists, says it uses high-precision weapons to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure and protect its own security. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.
Kyiv and the West say the conflict is an unprovoked attempt to reconquer a country that broke free of Moscow’s rule with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered military units to intensify operations to prevent Ukrainian strikes on eastern Ukraine and other areas held by Russia, where he said Kyiv could hit civilian infrastructure or residents, according to a statement from the ministry.
His remarks on Saturday appeared to be a direct response to what Kyiv says is a string of successful strikes carried out on 30 Russian logistics and ammunitions hubs, using several multiple launch rocket systems recently supplied by the West.
The strikes are causing havoc with Russian supply lines and have significantly reduced Russia’s offensive capability, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesperson said on Friday.
He singled out US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that Kyiv began receiving last month.
“Good morning from HIMARS,” Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president wrote on Telegram on Sunday alongside a video showing a large explosion which he said was another destroyed Russian ammunition depot in southern Ukraine.
Vadym Skibitskyi, an official at Ukrainian military intelligence, said on Saturday that HIMARS could be used on targets in Crimea, which was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014 when it also backed armed separatists in east Ukraine.
On Sunday, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said the refusal of Ukraine and NATO powers to recognise Moscow’s authority over Crimea represents a “systemic threat” for Russia, which has the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet there.
Russian-backed separatists said Ukraine had hit the town of Alchevsk, east of Sloviansk, with six HIMARS rockets on Saturday. The self-styled Luhansk People’s Republic said the strikes had killed two civilians and damaged a bus depot, health camp and apartments.
Ukraine’s armed forces said they had struck the bus depot because they had information it was being used to house Russian troops.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces had destroyed a launch ramp and reloading vehicle for one of the HIMARS systems deployed near the eastern city of Pokrovsk.
The head of Pokrovsk regional police, Ruslan Osypenko, said a residential area had been shelled by Russia with multiple rocket launchers and there were dead and wounded. It released video of damaged homes and residents describing the attack.
– With reporting by Reuters bureaux
