Hana Arkhirova and Kara Anna, Associated Press Published Sunday, July 17, 2022 4:29 pm EDT Last updated Sunday, July 17, 2022 10:20 pm EDT
VINYTICA, Ukraine (AP) — As Russian troops continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the state security chief and prosecutor general on Sunday, citing hundreds of criminal proceedings for treason and collaboration by people in their departments and others law enforcement agencies.
“In particular, more than 60 employees of the prosecutor’s office and the SBU (State Security Service) have remained in the occupied territory and are working against our state,” Zelensky said.
“Such a set of crimes against the foundations of national security of the state and the links registered between Ukrainian security forces and Russian special services raise very serious questions for their respective leaders,” he said in his overnight video address to the nation.
Zelensky fired Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend and former business partner whom he appointed head of the SBU. Bakanov has come under increasing criticism for security breaches since the start of the war; Politico last month cited several unidentified Ukrainian and Western sources as saying Zelensky wants to replace him.
He also dismissed the chief prosecutor Irina Venediktova and replaced her with her deputy Oleksii Simonenko. Venediktova assisted in the investigation of war crimes.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles hit industrial facilities earlier Sunday in Mykolaiv, a key shipbuilding center in southern Ukraine. Mayor Alexander Senkevich said the missiles hit an industrial and infrastructure facility. Nikolaev has faced regular Russian missile strikes in recent weeks as the Russians try to soften Ukrainian defenses.
The Russian military has announced its goal to cut off the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine all the way to the Romanian border. If successful, such an effort would deal a crushing blow to Ukraine’s economy and trade and allow Moscow to secure a land bridge to Moldova’s separatist region of Transnistria, where a Russian military base is located.
Early in the campaign, Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attempts to seize Nikolaev, which lies near the Black Sea coast between Russian-occupied Crimea and the main Ukrainian port of Odessa. Since then, Russian troops have stopped their attempts to advance on the city, but have continued to hit Nikolaev and Odessa with regular missile strikes.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Sunday that Russian missiles had destroyed a depot for Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied to Ukraine by NATO allies, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
The Russians, fearing a Ukrainian counteroffensive, also tried to strengthen their positions in the Kherson region near Crimea and in part of the northern Zaporozhye region, which they captured in the initial stage of the war.
“Given the pressure on Russian manpower, the reinforcement in the south as the battle for Donbas continues shows the seriousness with which Russian commanders view the threat,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.
For now, the Russian military has focused on trying to take control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, the Donbass, where the most capable and well-equipped Ukrainian forces are stationed.
Ukraine says its forces still control two small villages in the Luhansk region, one of the two provinces that make up Donbas, and are repelling Russian attempts to push deeper into the second, Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian army’s general staff said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops had thwarted Russian attempts to advance on Slavyansk, the key Ukrainian stronghold in Donetsk, and attacks elsewhere in the region.
Still, Russian officials are urging their troops to make even more territorial gains. During a visit to the front line on Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued an order “to further intensify the actions of units in all operational zones.”
The Russian military said it struck Ukrainian troops and artillery positions in the Donbass in the latest series of strikes, including a US-supplied HIMARS salvo-fire system. The Russian claims could not be independently verified.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, chaired by President Vladimir Putin, responded to claims by Ukrainian officials that Kyiv could strike the bridge connecting Crimea to Russia, warning that it would have devastating consequences for Ukraine’s guide.
“They will instantly face the Last Judgment,” Medvedev said on Sunday. “It will be very difficult for them to hide.”
Medvedev, once touted by the West as more liberal than Putin, said Russia would continue its offensive until it met its stated goal of “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. He predicted that the fighting “will undoubtedly lead to the collapse of the existing regime” in Kyiv.
Zelensky condemned Medvedev’s doomsday comment as “intimidation” and said it was Russia that would ultimately face “Doomsday”.
“And not figuratively, not like loud talk, but literally,” he said Sunday.
While focusing on Donbass, the Russians hit areas across the country with missile strikes.
In central Ukraine, relatives and friends attended the funeral Sunday of Lisa Dmitrieva, a 4-year-old girl killed Thursday in a Russian missile strike. The girl with Down syndrome was on her way to a speech therapist with her mother when the rockets hit the city of Vinnytsia. At least 24 people were killed, including Lisa and two boys aged 7 and 8. More than 200 others were injured, including Lisa’s mother, who remains in intensive care.
“I didn’t know Lisa, but no person can go through this with peace,” said priest Vitaly Kholoskevich, breaking down in tears as Lisa’s body lay in a casket with flowers and teddy bears in Vinnytsia’s 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral.
“We know that evil cannot win,” he added.
In the Kharkiv region, at least three civilians were killed and three others wounded Saturday in a predawn Russian strike on the city of Chuhuyev, just 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Russian border, police said.
One resident of the apartment building that was hit said she was lucky to have survived.
“I would run and hide in the bathroom. I failed and that saved me”, said Valentina Bushueva. Pointing to her destroyed apartment, she said: “There’s the bathroom – an explosion. Kitchen – half a room. And I survived because I stayed put.”
Anna reported from Pokrovsk, Ukraine.
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