Zelenskyy fires more aides in a reshuffle as Russia launches drones and missiles across Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed a longtime aide and several other advisers on Saturday in a unbroken reshuffle whereas Russia unleashed recent assaults in a single day.

Zelenskyy dismissed prime aide Serhiy Shefir from his put up of first assistant, the place he had served since 2019. The Ukrainian president additionally let go three advisers, and two presidential representatives overseeing volunteer actions and troopers’ rights.

No rationalization was given instantly for the newest modifications in a wide-reaching personnel shakeup over current months. It included the dismissal on Tuesday of Oleksii Danilov, who served as secretary of the Nationwide Safety and Protection Council, and Valerii Zaluzhnyi as head of the armed forces on Feb. 8. He was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK earlier this month.

Ukraine’s air power mentioned Saturday that Russia launched 12 Shahed drones in a single day, 9 of which have been shot down, and fired 4 missiles into japanese Ukraine.

Russia unleashed a barrage of 38 missiles, 75 airstrikes and 98 assaults from a number of rocket launchers over the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s armed forces mentioned in social media posts.

Ukrainian power firm Centrenergo introduced Saturday that the Zmiiv Thermal Energy Plant, one of many largest thermal energy crops within the japanese Kharkiv area, was fully destroyed following Russian shelling final week. Energy outage schedules have been nonetheless in place for round 120,000 individuals within the area, the place 700,000 individuals had misplaced electrical energy after the plant was hit on March 22.

Russia has escalated its assaults on Ukrainian power infrastructure in current days, inflicting important injury in a number of areas.

Officers within the Poltava area mentioned Saturday there had been “a number of hits” to an infrastructure facility, with out specifying whether or not it was an power facility.

In the meantime, the toll of Friday’s mass barrage of 99 drones and missiles hitting areas throughout Ukraine got here to mild on Saturday, with native officers within the Kherson area on Saturday morning saying the demise of 1 civilian. A resident of the Dnipropetrovsk area died in a hospital from shell wounds, in accordance with regional Gov. Serhiy Lisak.