President Zelenskyy has sacked the head of Ukraine’s security service and the prosecutor general over claims of treason and collaboration by people in their departments.
Ivan Bakanov, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (the SBU), was said to be a long-time friend of Mr Zelenskyy.
He also dismissed prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova and replaced her with her deputy, Oleksiy Symonenko.
The president, speaking in his nightly address, said “more than 60 employees of the prosecutor’s office and the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) have remained in the occupied territory and work against our state”.
“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the state’s national security, and the links recorded between Ukrainian security forces and Russian special services raise very serious questions about their respective leaders,” he added.
Mr Zelenskyy said 651 treason and collaboration cases had also been started against law enforcement officials.
And, nearly five months into the war, he said Russia had fired more than 3,000 cruise missiles but that it was “impossible to count” the number of artillery attacks.
Other developments Funeral held for girl, 4, killed in attack on Vinnytsia West-supplied weapons destroyed dozens of targets in Kherson on Sunday, says Kyiv Russian commanders told to prioritise destroying these new long-range weapons, says Kremlin At least 10 explosions reported in Mykolaiv overnight – no information yet on casualties Ukrainian MI-17 helicopter shot down near Sloviansk and an SU-25 aircraft in Kharkiv, says Russia
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Ivan Bakanov addressing the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv before the war. Pic: AP
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned that any outside attack on the Crimea region will prompt a “judgement day”.
Russia took control of the peninsula in 2014 and backed pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
According to Russia’s TASS news agency, in the event of an attack on Crimea, Mr Medvedev said: “Judgement day will come very fast and hard. It will be very difficult to hide.”
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Russia end ‘operational pause’
US warned against ‘endangering humanity’
Mr Medvedev’s statement came a day after a Ukrainian official suggested Crimea could be a target for US-made HIMARS missiles, recently deployed by Kyiv.
The ex-Russian leader has previously warned America of the dangers of attempting to punish a nuclear power such as Russia over its actions in Ukraine, saying this could “endanger humanity”.
On the front lines on Sunday, Russian missiles continued to hit industrial facilities in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, its mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said.
Mykolaiv has faced regular attacks in recent weeks as the Russians have sought to soften Ukrainian defences.
The Russian military has declared a goal to cut off Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coast all the way to the Romanian border.
If successful, such an effort would deal a crushing blow to the Ukrainian economy and trade, and allow Moscow to secure a land bridge to Moldova’s separatist region of Transnistria, which hosts a Russian military base.
Convicts join Russian mercenary group, says UK
Russia is now using “convicts” and “blacklisted indiuals” in the war, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its daily briefing on Monday.
It said mercenary organisation the Wagner Group, which is being used to reinforce Russia’s invasion, was setting the bar lower after suffering “heavy casualties” in the capture of Popasna and Lysychansk, in the eastern Luhansk region.
“Wagner are lowering recruitment standards, hiring convicts and formerly blacklisted indiuals,” said the MoD.
It said they were getting “very limited training” which would “highly likely impact on the future operational effectiveness of the group”.
The Wagner Group is privately owned but its management and operations are “deeply intertwined” with Russian military and intelligence, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an American think tank.
