Volodymyr Zelenskiy to dismiss defence minster Oleksii Reznikov; Russia strikes port infrastructure in Odesa critical to grain exports
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he plans to dismiss the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, from his post and will ask parliament this week to replace him with Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s main privatisation fund. The announcement, made in the Ukrainian president’s nightly video address to the nation, sets the stage for the biggest shake-up of Ukraine’s defence establishment since the war was launched by Russia in February 2022. Zelenskiy has to submit Umerov’s candidacy to parliament for review.
Russian drones hit Danube River port infrastructure that is critical to Ukraine’s grain exports, injuring at least two people in the attack on southern parts of the Odesa region on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. The Ukrainian air force said air defence systems shot down 22 of the 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia. The Russian defence ministry said the drones struck fuel depots at the Reni port – near both Romania and Moldova – used by the Ukrainian military.
Zelenskiy and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, spoke on Sunday, discussing the “functioning” of a sea corridor set up by Kyiv for safe navigation of ships after Moscow exited a landmark grain deal in July. The phone call came on the eve of a summit in Russia between president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who wants to revive the deal.
Romania’s defence ministry said the Danube attacks were “unjustified and in deep contradiction with the rules of international humanitarian law”. It also stressed that the Moscow drone attacks did not “generate any direct military threat to the national territory or territorial waters of Romania.” Moldova called the attack “brutal.”
Russia is exploiting foreign nationals in its effort to acquire more personnel for its war effort in the face of mounting casualties, and probably views millions of migrants from central Asia as potential recruits, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
Moscow has recruited 230,000 people into the army since the start of the year, ex-president and Security Council chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday according to Tass news agency. “Part of them were in the reserves, part of them volunteers and other categories,” he said during a visit to the Far Eastern Russian island of Sakhalin. It was not possible for the Guardian to verify these numbers.
Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky has been arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. The detention of the one-time supporter of Zelenskiy, whose election he backed in 2019, comes as Kyiv is trying to signal progress during a wartime crackdown on corruption.
Ukrainian forces have decisively breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia after weeks of painstaking mine clearance, and expect faster gains as they press the weaker second line, the general leading the southern counteroffensive has told the Observer. Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskiy said Ukrainian forces were now pushing out on both sides of the breach and consolidating their hold on territory seized in recent fighting.
A non-residential building in the western Russian city of Kurchatov caught fire on Sunday after an attack by a Ukrainian drone but emergency services put the fire out and there were no casualties, Roman Starovoit, governor of the Kursk region, said.
Ukraine expects a boom in drone production as early as this autumn, according to its outgoing defence minister. Reznikov told the state-run Ukrinform news agency one reason for the growth of production was that authorities had reduced various regulations and laws.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
