KYIV, Ukraine
Ukraine President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy said Sunday that defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced
this week with Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker.Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov
Zelenskyy made the
announcement on his official Telegram account, writing that new leadership was
needed after Reznikov went through “more than 550 days of full-scale war.”
Later in his nightly address,
Zelenskyy said he believes “that the Ministry needs new approaches and
different formats of interaction both with the military and with society.”
“The Verkhovna Rada
(parliament) of Ukraine is well acquainted with this person, and Umerov does
not require additional introductions. I expect support for this candidacy from
parliament,” the president told the nation.
Umerov, 41, a politician with the
opposition Holos party, has served as head of the State Property Fund of
Ukraine since September 2022. He was involved in the exchange of prisoners of
war, political prisoners, children and civilians, as well as the evacuation of
civilians from occupied territories. Umerov was also part of the Ukrainian
delegation in negotiations with Russia over the U.N.-backed grain deal.
Resnikov’s
removal comes after a scandal around the Ministry of Defense’s procurement of
military jackets. In August, Ukrainian investigative journalists reported that
the materials were purchased at a price three times higher than normal and that
instead of winter jackets, summer ones were ordered. In the customs documents
from the supplier, the jackets were priced at $29 per unit, but the Ministry of
Defense paid $86 per unit. Reznikov denied the allegations during a news
conference last week.
U.S. President Joe Biden told
reporters in Delaware on Sunday that he was aware Zelenskyy had replaced his
defense chief. Asked if he had any comment, Biden said, “Not publicly.” The
U.S. Department of Defense also declined to comment.
Zelenskyy’s announcement came
after two people were hospitalized following a 3½-hour Russian drone barrage on
a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region on Sunday, officials said.
The attack on the Reni seaport
comes a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is
due to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the resumption of food shipments from
Ukraine under a Black Sea grain agreement that Moscow broke off from in July.
Russian forces fired 25
Iranian-made Shahed drones along the Danube River in the early hours of Sunday,
22 of which were shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air force said on
Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy ’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as
part of a Russian drive “to provoke a food crisis and hunger in the world.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said
in a statement that the attack was aimed at fuel storage facilities used to
supply military equipment.
Putin and Erdogan’s
long-awaited meeting is due to take place in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast
on Monday.
Turkish officials have
confirmed that the pair will discuss renewing the Black Sea grain initiative,
which the Kremlin pulled out of six weeks ago.
The deal — brokered by the
United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 — had allowed nearly 33 million metric
tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian
ports safely despite Russia’s war.
However, Russia broke away
from the agreement after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove
obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.
Moscow complained that
restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even
though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.
The Sochi summit follows talks
between the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers on Thursday, during which
Russia handed over a list of actions that the West would have to take in order
for Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to resume.
Erdogan has indicated sympathy
with Putin’s position. In July, he said Putin had “certain expectations from
Western countries” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “crucial for these
countries to take action in this regard.”
Elsewhere in Ukraine, three
people were killed in two separate attacks by Russian shelling in the Donetsk
area Sunday. An 85-year-old man was named among the victims after being crushed
by the rubble of his own home, Ukraine’s Prosecutors’ Office reported.
A 36-year-old man was also
killed in another Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Ukrainian prosecutors
announced Sunday that they had opened a war crimes investigation into the death
of a police officer killed by Russian shelling on the town of Seredyna-Buda on
Saturday afternoon.
Two other police officers and
one civilian were wounded during the attack, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern
Sumy region.
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