Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Sunday that Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov might be changed this week with Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker.
Zelenskyy made the announcement on his official Telegram account, writing that new management was wanted after Umerov “has gone via greater than 550 days of full-scale struggle.”
Later in his nightly deal with, Zelenskyy stated he believes “that the Ministry wants new approaches and completely different codecs of interplay each with the navy and with society.”
“The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is effectively acquainted with this individual, and Umerov doesn’t require further introductions. I count on help for this candidacy from parliament,” the president informed the nation.
Umerov, 41, a politician with the opposition Holos social gathering, has served as head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine since September 2022.
He was concerned within the alternate of prisoners of struggle, political prisoners, youngsters and civilians, in addition to the evacuation of civilians from occupied territories. Umerov was additionally a part of the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations with Russia over the UN-backed grain deal.
In August, a scandal arose across the Ministry of Defence’s procurement of navy jackets.
Ukrainian investigative journalists reported that the supplies have been bought at a value 3 times increased than regular and that as a substitute of winter jackets, summer time ones have been ordered. Within the customs paperwork from the provider, the jackets have been priced at $29 ($39.43 Cdn) per unit, however the Ministry of Defence paid $86 ($116.93 Cdn) per unit. Reznikov denied the allegations throughout a information convention final week.
Sunday’s announcement got here after two individuals have been hospitalized following a 3.5-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa area, officers stated.
Russian forces fired 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones alongside the Danube River within the early hours of Sunday, 22 of which have been shot down by air defences, the Ukrainian air pressure stated on Telegram.
Zelenskyy’s chief of workers, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as a part of a Russian drive “to impress a meals disaster and starvation on the earth.”
Russia’s Defence Ministry stated in a press release that the assault was aimed toward gas storage services used to produce navy tools.
Lengthy-awaited Putin-Erdogon summit
The assault on the Reni seaport comes a day earlier than Russian President Vladimir Putin is because of meet together with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to debate the resumption of meals shipments from Ukraine beneath a Black Sea grain settlement that Moscow broke off from in July.
Putin and Erdogan’s long-awaited assembly is because of happen in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast on Monday.
Turkish officers have confirmed that the pair will talk about renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, which the Kremlin pulled out of six weeks in the past.
The deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 — had allowed practically 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and different commodities to depart three Ukrainian ports safely regardless of Russia’s struggle.
At the least six areas in Russia have been focused by drones in what seems to be essentially the most widespread aerial assault because it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has in a roundabout way claimed duty, however drone assaults have been escalating in current weeks.
Nevertheless, Russia broke away from the settlement after claiming {that a} parallel deal promising to take away obstacles to Russian exports of meals and fertilizer hadn’t been honoured.
Moscow complained that restrictions on delivery and insurance coverage hampered its agricultural commerce, though it has shipped document quantities of wheat since final yr.
The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish international ministers on Thursday, throughout which Russia handed over an inventory of actions that the West must take to ensure that Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to renew.
Erdogan has indicated sympathy with Putin’s place. In July, he stated Putin had “sure expectations from Western nations” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “essential for these nations to take motion on this regard.”
Lethal shelling in Ukraine
Elsewhere in Ukraine, three individuals have been killed in two separate assaults by Russian shelling within the Donetsk space Sunday. An 85-year-old man was named among the many victims after being crushed by the rubble of his own residence, Ukraine’s Prosecutors’ Workplace reported.
A 36-year-old man was additionally killed in one other Russian assault on Ukraine’s Kherson area.
Ukrainian prosecutors introduced Sunday that that they had opened a struggle crimes investigation into the loss of life of a police officer killed by Russian shelling in town of Seredyna-Buda on Saturday afternoon.
Two different cops and one civilian have been wounded throughout the assault, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy area.