Russia Ukraine struggle newest: Putin to switch defence minister and key long-time ally Sergei Shoigu

russia’s offensive within the frontline area of Kharkiv is escalating, Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned, with extra villages engulfed in energetic preventing.

“Defensive operations and fierce battles are going down within the Kharkiv area alongside a major border strip. Some villages have successfully turned from a gray zone to a struggle zone. Occupiers are trying to grab management of a few of them whereas utilizing others to advance,” he mentioned in his nightly tackle.

He added: “Our objective is obvious: inflict as many losses as attainable on the occupiers. The state of affairs can be very troublesome close to Vovchansk. The town is underneath fixed Russian fireplace. Our army continues to counter Russian assaults. Locals proceed to obtain help.”

Mr Zelensky has urged everybody within the Kharkiv area to face agency. “Each these within the army, defence forces, native governments, and communities. Our resilience and Ukrainian ends in fight are key,” he mentioned in his nightly tackle.

This comes as Russian forces attacking the Kharkiv area reached the outskirts of the border city of Vovchansk.

Vladimir Putin’s troops smashed into the Kharkiv area on Friday, opening up a northeastern entrance within the 27-month struggle that has lengthy been waged within the south and east. Kharkiv, Ukraine‘s second largest metropolis, is 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border.

Putin’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov mentioned the president determined the ministry of defence ought to be headed by a civilian to be “open to innovation and superior concepts”.

He mentioned: “The one who’s extra open to improvements is the one who will probably be victorious on the battlefield.”

Mr Peskov additionally claimed the change made sense as a result of russia was “approaching a state of affairs just like the Soviet Union within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, when the army and regulation enforcement authorities accounted for 7.4% of state spending”.

A minimum of 15 individuals had been killed and 20 injured on Sunday when a bit of a Russian residence block collapsed after being struck by fragments of a Soviet-era missile, launched by Ukraine and shot down by russia, Russian officers mentioned.

russia’s defence ministry mentioned the assault passed off at 8.40am GMT and concerned at the very least 12 missiles.

The assault is likely one of the deadliest up to now on the area of Belgorod, involving Tochka ballistic missiles and Adler and RM-70 Vampire (MLRS) a number of launch rocket techniques.

“Fragments of one of many downed Tochka-U missiles broken an residence constructing within the metropolis of Belgorod,” the Russian ministry mentioned.

Visuals from the scene confirmed at the very least 10 storeys of the constructing collapsing. Later, as emergency providers scoured the rubble for survivors, the roof collapsed and folks ran for his or her lives, mud and rubble falling behind them.

russia’s emergency ministry up to date the dying toll from 13 to fifteen within the early hours in the present day. Native experiences mentioned at the very least 20 individuals had been injured and at the very least as soon as youngster was among the many lacking. Rocket sirens went off as emergency staff searched the rubble.

Each Ukraine and russia say they don’t goal civilians within the struggle, which russia launched at its smaller neighbour in February 2022. Its invasion has killed hundreds, displaced thousands and thousands and turned Ukrainian cities into rubble.

A fireplace was reported at a Russian electrical substation in Lipetsk area after the power got here underneath Ukrainian drone assault this morning, whereas assaults had been additionally reported within the bordering Belgorod and Kursk areas, officers mentioned.

“There are not any casualties. The hearth within the territory of {the electrical} substation is being extinguished,” Igor Artamonov, the governor of the Kursk area in russia’s south, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

russia mentioned it destroyed at the very least eight drones over the Kursk area that borders Ukraine, the area’s administration. It was not instantly clear whether or not there have been casualties or severe harm.

A number of “air objects” had been additionally downed over the Belgorod area, south of Kursk, additionally alongside the border with Ukraine, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

The assault broken 5 homes, he added, however in line with preliminary data there have been no accidents.

Ukraine doesn’t sometimes touch upon these experiences of drone assaults however says that concentrating on russia’s army, transport and vitality infrastructure undermines Moscow’s struggle effort and is a solution to the numerous lethal assaults by russia.

Vladimir Putin yesterday proposed to switch his long-term ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister and nominated civilian Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who specialises in economics, for the job greater than two years into the Ukraine struggle, the Kremlin mentioned.

Seen as a member of Mr Putin’s shut circle, the 65-year-old graduated from the College of Economics of the Moscow State College in 1981 with distinction. He wrote his dissertation on “An imitative method to modeling interrelated processes for the formation and use of working capital.”

In 2000, Mr Belousov was appointed a non-staff adviser to the Russian prime minister and joined the economic system ministry as deputy minister six years later. From 2008-2012, he was director of the division for economics and finance within the authorities equipment, the identical years Putin served as prime minister.

In 2012, he served as russia’s economics minister. From 2013 till 2020, Mr Belousov served as adviser to the Russian president.

From 2020, he labored as first deputy prime minister. When prime minister Mikhail Mishustin acquired Covid-19 in 2020, Mr Belousov briefly took on the prime minister’s duties whereas Mishustin acquired higher.

In 2017, Russian media outlet RBC mentioned Belousov was one of many officers who satisfied Putin that the digital economic system and blockchain had been essential to the longer term.

“I can say that what a rustic with sovereignty ought to undoubtedly have is the possession of its personal meanings. Who’re we, the place are we from, the place are we going? We’ve no different possibility for our nation however to amass or reproduce this id,” he had informed RBC in an interview in 2023.

Based on RBC, he practised sambo and karate in his youth and didn’t serve within the armed forces.

The top of the Kharkiv Regional Navy Administration (RMA), Oleh Sinegubov, mentioned on Telegram:

“The enemy is intensifying shelling of Vovchansk. Our Armed Forces troopers are preventing exhausting. The northern border of the Kharkiv area is essentially the most troublesome space now.”

Russian troops are intensifying shelling of town of Vovchansk in Kharkiv area, and the evacuation of the inhabitants continues.

“At the moment we now have evacuated 1,600 individuals from the Vovchansk course. We’re persevering with this work. In simply three days, 5,500 individuals have been evacuated,” he added.

The Berdyansk Metropolis Navy Administration posted on Telegram: Loud in Berdyansk! Residents report a loud explosion that was heard in numerous neighbourhoods of town.”

The town of Berdyansk has been underneath Russian occupation since February 27, 2022.

It has been plagued with infrastructure issues together with an absence of water provide.