2023-09-04 01:27:35
Russia has again attacked port facilities in the southern region of Odessa with Iranian-made drones Shahed, as the Ukrainians prepare to force the second line of Russian defense in Zaporizhia after overcoming the first. In the midst of the counteroffensive launched by Kiev to recover territories occupied by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky announced the dismissal of his Defense Minister and called for “a new approach” in the ministry.
“Oleksiy Reznikov went through more than 550 days of large-scale war. I think the ministry needs a new approach and other ways of interacting both with the military and with society in general,” Zelensky said in his daily message. Reznikov, 56, took office three months before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leading negotiations with allies to equip their forces with modern weaponry.
The dismissal comes amid the counteroffensive launched by kyiv in June to liberate Moscow-occupied areas in the east and south of the territory. It also coincides with the authorities’ promise to intensify their fight against corruption, at the request of the European Union. The Defense Ministry was embroiled in at least two corruption scandals. To replace Reznikov in the portfolio, Zelensky proposed Rustem Umerov, head of the State Property Fund.
Sentences from Romania and Moldova
After the suspension of the agreement that allowed the export of Ukrainian grains through the Black Sea, Moscow multiplied the bombardments in this region, where there are ports and other infrastructure necessary for trade. “The enemy attacked civilian industrial infrastructures in the Danube region,” the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office stated on Telegram.
According to the prosecutor, Ukrainian forces managed to shoot down 22 of the 25 drones used in the attack. The Russian army, for its part, indicated that it carried out a drone attack against the port of Reni, on the border with Romania, a NATO member country. Both Romania and Moldova condemned the attack, although Bucharest stressed that “at no time” did the Russian attacks “generate any direct military threat to Romania’s national territory or territorial waters.”
A direct attack against a NATO member country could provoke a new escalation of the conflict. Moldova, which does not belong to the Atlantic alliance, denounced a “brutal” operation by Moscow. “Russia must be held responsible for every piece of infrastructure destroyed,” said Moldovan President Maya Sandu, a fervent supporter of her country joining the European Union.
Zelensky said that he spoke this Sunday with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, about how to “strengthen security in the Odesa region” and about the “means of guaranteeing the operation” of a corridor established by Kiev in the Black Sea to allow navigation safe, after Russia withdrew from the agreement on the export of grains.
The telephone conversation took place a day before the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meet in the Russian city of Sochi, where they are expected to discuss a possible resumption of the cereal pact, which is sponsored by the UN and supported by Ankara.
“Attack them faster and faster”
For General Oleksander Tarnavskiy, in charge of the counteroffensive that Ukraine is carrying out in the south of the country, the kyiv army made important advances on the ground. “We are now between the first and the second line of defence” for the Russians, Tarnavskiy said in an interview published by the British newspaper The Guardian. Days ago Ukraine announced the seizure of the village of Robotyne, in the south.
Alluding to the skepticism that the Kiev counter-offensive aroused in some quarters, Tarnavskiy alleged that the Ukrainian army suffered delays because it “spend more time than expected in removing the mines from the territories” occupied by the Russians. The Ukrainian general was optimistic about the future, noting: “The enemy seizes their reserves. Sooner or later, the Russians will have few good soldiers left. This will give us the opportunity to attack them faster and faster.”
However Tarnavskiy acknowledged that Ukraine is also “losing the strongest and the best.” This Sunday the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced a modification of the legislation for conscription in times of war, by which the exemptions are significantly reduced. From now on, among others, people with “mild and brief manifestations of mental disorders, neurotic disorders or stress-related disorders” will be considered suitable.
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