Updated July 17, 2022 at 8:40 p.m. EDT|Published
July 17, 2022 at 3:02 a.m. EDT
In his government’s most high-level shake-up during the war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed Ivan Bakanov, head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). Bakanov’s SBU, the domestic intelligence and security agency, had come under criticism since the start of the war after three former officials were charged with treason in late March.
Zelensky also fired Iryna Venediktova, the nation’s prosecutor general, who had been investigating war crimes.
Shortly after announcing the dismissals, Zelensky said more than 60 employees in the SBU and the prosecutor’s office were working against Ukraine. Such officials, he said Sunday in his nightly address, will be held accountable.
Earlier Sunday, Russian missiles hit industrial areas of Mykolaiv — which is emerging as a major focus for Russia as it seeks to push toward Odessa from eastern areas under its control — in the second such attack there in three days. Russia also appears set to resume its ground offensive in southern and eastern Ukraine, following what analysts called a pause for troops to regroup. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told troops on Saturday to intensify attacks “in all operational sectors” of Ukraine, while Ukrainian officials said there was shelling “along the entire front line.”
Here’s what else to know:
- 50,000 Russian soldiers have either died or been injured in Ukraine — resulting in a significant loss of land combat effectiveness, said Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the United Kingdom’s Armed Forces.
- A Ukrainian cargo plane carrying mines crashed in northern Greece, killing all eight Ukrainian crew members onboard. Amid speculation that the shipment might be bound for Ukraine, Serbia’s defense minister said the mines were being sent to Bangladesh.
- Fighting is ongoing in the Luhansk region, where the governor said two towns were still in Ukrainian control. Russia claimed control of the entire region this month.
Zelensky dismisses head of Ukrainian Security Service and top prosecutor
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the head of the country’s security services, Ivan Bakanov, and its prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, on Sunday — the biggest government dismissals since Russia’s full-scale invasion began nearly five months ago.
The dismissals reveal cracks within Zelensky’s ranks.
In his nightly address on Sunday, Zelensky said more than 60 employees within the prosecutor’s office and the security service (SBU) are working against Ukraine.He added that the country has 651 criminal proceedings against employees across several high-level offices for allegedly collaborating with Russians or working against the nation’s goals.
“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state and the connections detected between the employees of the security forces of Ukraine and the special services of Russia pose very serious questions to the relevant leadership,” Zelensky said.
He added that other security officials and law enforcement agencies would be evaluated.
Bakanov’s leadership of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence and security agency had come under criticism since the start of the war after three former officials in the SBU were charged with state treason in late March.
Two of the officials, Gen. Serhiy Kryvoruchko and Col. Ihor Sadokhin, worked in the Kherson office. Kherson was the first major city captured by the Russians and was taken with little resistance — in large part because Ukrainian troops did not blow up the Antonovskiy Bridge, which connects the city to an area from which Moscow-backed forces advanced.
Appointed to the top SBU role in 2019, Bakanov was a childhood friend of Zelensky who ran his presidential campaign and, before that, his entertainment company.
Venediktova was appointed as prosecutor general in 2020. Since the war in Ukraine began, she and her office have been investigating suspected war crimes.
Photos: Russia’s ‘operational pause’ ends with weekend of attacks
By Julian Duplain6:12 p.m.
A number of missiles struck Ukraine over the weekend as Russian forces appeared to end an “operational pause” intended to allow them to regroup and reposition. On Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had called for intensified attacks “in all operational sectors” of Ukraine.
Funeral held for child killed in Vinnytsia strike
A 4-year-old girl killed last week in a Russian missile strike was laid to rest Sunday, with a white floral crown on her head and teddy bears filling her casket.
Liza Dmitrieva reportedly was being pushed in a stroller when the strike hit a business complex Thursday in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, leaving at least 23 dead. Photos taken after the attack showed the pink stroller knocked to the ground, its fabric torn.
The child, who had Down syndrome, was a constant presence on her mother’s Instagram account, which was filled with images of the two cuddling and Liza frolicking through flowers. The Logo Club Children’s Center called her “Sunny Flower” in an online tribute, writing, “Today you became a ray of sun,” Reuters reported.
At her funeral on Sunday, relatives dressed in black held candles and wept beside Liza’s casket. A tearful Orthodox priest told mourners that “evil cannot win,” according to the Guardian.
Key battleground updates: Vinnytsia death toll stands at 24; Sumy pummeled by missiles
Dnipro: Russian missile strikes killed two people in the southern city of Nikopol on Saturday, the region’s governor said on Telegram. On Friday, at least three people were killed and 15 were injured in a strike on an industrial area, Ukrainian officials said. The attack left cars burning and shattered the windows of residential buildings, officials said.
Sumy: This northern region, which straddles the area between Kyiv and Kharkiv, was pummeled by dozens of missiles on Saturday, Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, the regional governor, said in a Telegram post. Civilian households, buildings and power lines were damaged, he said.
Luhansk area: Two towns still under Ukrainian control are “on the defensive,” governor Serhiy Haidai said Sunday morning. He said battles are underway in Bilohorivka and Verkhniokamianka as Russia steps up its offensive after an operational pause.
Kharkiv area: Three people were killed and three were hospitalized after rocket attacks Saturday in the city of Chuhuiv, the region’s governor said on Telegram. Missiles hit an apartment building, a school and administrative buildings, according to a Saturday morning Facebook post from Serhiy Bolvinov, deputy head of the Kharkiv region’s police force. He said authorities found the three bodies under the rubble.
Mykolaiv: The mayor said early Sunday local time that 10 large explosions had occurred in this southern city, but he did not elaborate. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said industrial buildings were struck. Casualty details were not immediately available, the Associated Press reported. Officials said Friday that a Russian attack had struck two universities in the city.
Vinnytsia: With workers finished sorting through the rubble after an airstrike last week, the final death count from the attack apparently stood at 24 late Saturday, regional governor Serhiy Borzov said. Of the 68 people hospitalized after the strike, 14 were in serious condition and four were in critical condition, he added. Among those killed was a 4-year-old girl, Liza Dmitrieva, who was buried Sunday, according to the Guardian.
Zaporizhzhia: Explosions were heard between 2 and 3 p.m. local time in the regional center, authorities reported on Telegram. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties.
Ukraine hopes for ‘accountability’ 8 years after MH17 downing
By Julian Duplain11:51 a.m.
The Ukrainian government said it was determined to pursue “truth, justice and accountability” over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was hit by a missile over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists eight years ago today, killing all 298 people on board.
“Our thoughts remain with those who perished on board, their families and loved ones,” said a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
A Dutch-led investigation established that the Boeing 777, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was brought down by a Buk surface-to-air missile over Hrabove in the Donetsk region. The investigation concluded that the missile launcher had been transported from Russian territory and returned there soon after the incident.
More than two-third of the passengers were Dutch or Australian, and the two countries have said Russia was behind the worst-ever such attack on a civilian aircraft. “Since 2018, Australia has maintained that the Russian Federation is responsible under international law,” reiterated Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Sunday. Moscow has denied it is to blame.
A Dutch court case against four pro-Russian separatist rebels, accusing them in absentia of bringing down the plane, began last year. Records of phone calls between two of the defendants, who discussed shooting down what they believed to be a Ukrainian military plane, form part of the trial evidence. A verdict is not expected until the end of the year. Meanwhile, in March, the Dutch and Australian governments opened a case at the International Civil Aviation Organization, seeking to establish Russia’s legal culpability for the disaster.
Donetsk governor urges people to evacuate
By Julian Duplain10:38 a.m.
The governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region urged people to evacuate, as he reported Russian strikes on three areas.
“It is now dangerous to remain on the region’s territory,” Pavlo Kyrylenko said on the messaging app Telegram.
Rockets hit a residential area in Toretska, while shelling damaged buildings in Kostyantynivka and Soledar; all three towns are north of the city of Donetsk. No injuries have so far been reported.
Some people, however, are resisting calls to leave. “I belong here, and so do many other people,” Zitta Topilina a 61-year-old humanitarian coordinator in Selydove, 25 miles northwest of Donetsk, told the Associated Press. “We believe that Ukraine is ours, and we are going to die here.”
Russia’s military offensive in the Donetsk region appears to be resuming after an “operational pause” to regroup its forces, Vadym Skibitskyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, said on Saturday. “We can see shelling along the entire line of contact, along the entire front line. There is an active use of tactical aviation and attack helicopters. … Clearly preparations are now underway for the next stage of the offensive.”
Having achieved control over the entire neighboring Luhansk region, Russian forces are seeking to advance farther west into Donetsk. Russian control of the two regions, with their pro-Moscow separatist administrations, is key to President Vladimir Putin’s war objectives.
Air Force veteran detained by pro-Russian separatists, brother says
A U.S. Air Force veteran living in Ukraine has been detained by pro-Russian separatists, his brother said — making him at least the third American to be captured in Ukraine since the war began.
Troops supporting Russia took custody of Suedi Murekezi, 35, in the southern city of Kherson in early June and falsely accused him of participating in pro-Ukrainian protests, Sele Murekezi said Saturday.
He said his brother called him last week and said he was being held in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a separatist region in eastern Ukraine, with two other captured Americans, Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh.
Embassy threatens legal action over Putin caricature in Swiss newspaper
The Russian Embassy in Switzerland was not amused when newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung published an article about the role of memes and digital messaging in the war in Ukraine — along with a caricature of Russian President Vladimir Putin with a clown nose and rainbow streaks across his face.
The embassy’s press service published a scathing letter on its website Saturday addressed to NZZ’s editor in chief, Eric Gujer, in which it vaguely threatens legal action for the June 25 article — published in print on July 9 — as well as any future unfavorable articles about Russian officials.
“We believe that freedom of speech is in no way compatible with the freedom to spread insults and fakes,” the letter said.
The article on NZZ’s site, titled “Between Superheroes and Villains: The Power of Memes in the Ukraine War,” features a compilation image of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, dressed in a Captain America-esque suit with the colors and symbols of Ukraine, next to Putin, with his clown nose and rainbow makeup.
“If we are speaking about clownery, it would be much more appropriate to touch on this topic in the context of the recent past of the former Ukrainian comedian V. Zelensky,” the embassy said in its letter.
The embassy appeared to take particular issue with the rainbow makeup on Putin’s face — a possible reference to the Russian leader’s crackdown on LGBT rights in Russia. The edited image had previously circulated on Twitter under the hashtag #PutinWarCriminal, according to the news outlet Swissinfo.
Putin “is a deeply religious Orthodox person and advocates the preservation of traditional Christian values in Russian society (and he is clearly not a fan of the LGBT community …),” the letter said.
50,000 Russian soldiers killed, injured in war, U.K. defense chief says
Adm. Sir Tony Radakin, chief of Britain’s Armed Forces, said 50,000 Russian soldiers have either died or been injured in Ukraine — resulting in a significant loss of land combat effectiveness.
Radakin, who traveled to Ukraine last week to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, told the BBC on Sunday that Ukrainian military officials “are absolutely clear that they plan to restore the whole of their territory.”
“They see a Russia that is struggling — a Russia that we assess has lost more than 30 percent of its land combat effectiveness,” Radakin said. “What that actually means is 50,000 Russian soldiers that have either died or been injured in this conflict, nearly 1,700 Russian tanks destroyed, nearly 4,000 armored fighting vehicles that belong to Russia destroyed.”
Russia has been making gains in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, renewing attacks against the east and the south of the country after a period of relative quiet that analysts called an “operational pause” for Russian troops to rest and regroup before resuming their ground offensive.
Russia has claimed control of Luhansk, one of two provinces that make up Donbas, and is attacking the other, Donetsk.
But the Donbas region is “less than 10 percent of the territory of Ukraine, and we’re approaching 150 days [of the war], and Russia is struggling to take that territory,” Radakin said Sunday, framing this as one of several signs that Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has not gone as Moscow planned.
Russia hoped “to take the whole of Ukraine,” “to take the cities in the first 30 days” and to “create fractures and to apply pressure to NATO,” Radakin said. It “is failing in all of those ambitions,” he said. “Russia is a more diminished nation than it was at the beginning of February. And that’s what Ukraine is seeing.”
When asked how Ukraine might hope to regain control over Crimea, which it lost to Russian forces and their separatist allies in 2014, Radakin said officials in Kyiv view the full restoration of Ukrainian territory as “a long-term ambition.”
Ukrainian children’s choirs sing with Rolling Stones in Vienna
Two Ukrainian children’s choirs joined the Rolling Stones in singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” during the band’s Friday night concert in Vienna.
The Ukrainian boys’ and girls’ choirs, Dzvinochok and Vognyk, respectively, took to the stage dressed in T-shirts bearing the Rolling Stones’ signature tongue and lips logo in blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
Whether the song choice was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek dig at Moscow was unclear. The 1969 classic is one of the British rock group’s greatest hits.
As the song ended, Mick Jagger thanked the Kyiv groups and asked them to take a bow, saying they “came a long way to be with us tonight.”
Ukrainian children’s choirs sang together with @RollingStones in Vienna on July 15th!
They sang one of the Stones’ classic hits “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.
Thank you and may kids always get what they want in life! pic.twitter.com/UgLeSA3TD2
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 16, 2022
Two towns holding out in eastern Luhansk region, official says
By Julian Duplain7:54 a.m.
Two towns are still under Ukrainian control in the eastern Luhansk region, governor Serhiy Haidai said Sunday morning, as Russia gears up for a renewed push westward. Russia claimed earlier this month that its forces had taken the entire region, a major propaganda victory in President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Haidai said battles are underway in Bilohorivka and Verkhniokamianka, with both towns “on the defensive.” Russian troops appear to be resuming more intensive battlefield operations after an “operational pause” intended to allow its forces to regroup in the south and east of Ukraine.
According to Haidai, “the operational pause of the Russians was caused by significant losses over four and a half months, as well as well-targeted strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the enemy’s ammunition depots.”
The towns identified by Haidai are just east of the border between the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Together they make up Donbas, now Russia’s main objective in the war.
Missiles target Mykolaiv in second attack in three days
By Julian Duplain7:03 a.m.
A barrage of Russian missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv early Sunday morning, destroying a number of buildings and starting fires, which were later extinguished. The number of casualties is still being assessed, according to the local State Emergency Service. At one damaged building, a search was being conducted for people possibly buried beneath the rubble.
“A big volley of 10 missiles struck the city,” said Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s South Defense Forces. She said they were probably S-300 missiles. “Industrial infrastructure has been hit in multiple districts across the city,” she added.
Mykolaiv on Friday was struck by about the same number of S-300 Russian missiles, which hit two university complexes, heavily damaging nearby shops and buildings and injuring at least four people. The S-300 missile system is a surface-to-air weapon, but the Ukrainian military has said Russian forces have resorted to using it to strike targets on land, possibly because of a shortage of surface-to-surface missiles.
Mykolaiv, a city of 500,000 people, has been a key front since the start of the war, and the Ukrainian military there has barred Russian forces from advancing west toward the Black Sea port of Odessa.
Ukrainian cargo plane carrying mines crashes in Greece, officials say
A Ukrainian owned and operated cargo plane said to be carrying defense equipment — including mines — from Serbia crashed near Kavala, Greece, sparking a large-scale operation to secure the site and a swirl of speculation online about where the plane was ultimately headed.
Serbian authorities said the plane, an Antonov An-12BK aircraft owned by the private Ukrainian cargo carrier Meridian, was headed to Bangladesh. It was on its way from Serbia to Jordan, flight records show, when it crashed in northern Greece.
All eight crew members onboard flight MEM3032 were killed in the crash, Meridian CEO Denys Bogdanovych told German news outlet Deutsche Welle. Ukrainian officials confirmed the crew members were all Ukrainian nationals.
The pilot had reported an issue with one of the aircraft’s engines and requested an emergency landing, the Associated Press reported, citing Greece’s civil aviation authority.
Greek emergency responders early Sunday planned to secure and clear the site of the crash and investigate the smoke emanating from the burning aircraft to determine its toxicity.
Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said the plane’s cargo included illuminating mortar mines and training mines, according to Serbia’s public broadcaster RTS.
Videos and photos from residents shared on social media appeared to show the aircraft on fire in the sky before it crashed in a spectacular ball of fire.
Black Sea grain export plan due to be signed this week
By Julian Duplain5:32 a.m.
Turkey plans to establish a coordination center in Istanbul to oversee the export of Ukrainian grain, run by officials from the country along with Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations, its president said.
The initiative is part of an effort to ease global food supply concerns caused by Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports, which has stymied grain shipments.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, said swiftly implementing the plan would be a huge relief on global food security.
Under the agreement, due to be signed later this week, Turkey will ensure the safety of Black Sea shipping routes and there will be joint checks on grain in ports, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said last week. “We see that the parties are willing to solve this problem,” he said.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres welcomed the first “critical step” but cautioned that “more technical work will now be needed.”
“I’m encouraged. I’m optimistic, but it’s not yet fully done,” he said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its blockade of Ukrainian ports have resulted in more than 20 million tons of grain being stuck in silos, exacerbating concerns about rising world food prices, especially in developing countries. As well as grain, exports of sunflower oil and fertilizers have been halted. The inability to export crops also means that Ukrainian farmers are starved of income, which will affect their ability to harvest crops this fall, deepening the cycle of food shortages. Another concern is that if space is not freed up by exporting the grain currently in silos, there will be nowhere to store any crops that farmers can harvest.
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