Deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Tuesday he had asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday to relieve him of his duties amid a wave of resignations and dismissals from the government. The move comes amid a corruption scandal that saw Infrastructure MP Vasyl Lozinskyi sacked and detained over an alleged theft of $400,000 from the winter aid budget. Tymoshenko, 33, had been the deputy head of the presidential office since 2019, overseeing regions and regional policies. He also worked with Zelenskiy during his election campaign, overseeing media and creative content.
Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for supplying troops with food and equipment, also resigned, citing “media accusations” of corruption that he and the ministry say are baseless. A statement on the Defense Ministry website said Shapovalov’s resignation was “a dignified act” that would help retain confidence in the ministry
deputy attorney general Oleksiy Symonenko was removed from office, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, and two deputy ministers resigned from the Ukrainian Ministry of Community and Territorial Development – Vyacheslav Negoda and Ivan Lukeria. The heads of five regional authorities were also reportedly removed from their posts, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, The amounts and Kherson.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podoliak, said today’s staff reshuffle showed Zelensky was responding to a “key public demand” that justice applies to all. “Zelenskiy’s personal decisions reflect the main priorities of the state. The president sees and hears society. And it responds directly to an essential public demand: justice for all”.
Zelensky said Monday that changes would be announced shortly in the government, regions and security forces after allegations of corruption nearly a year after the Russian invasion.
Germany has now received Polandofficial request to re-export Leopard tanks to Ukraine, according to Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said.
The final decision as to whether Germany give permission will be taken at the Chancellery in Berlin, a senior Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, the decision will obviously be taken at the chancellery, in consensus by the government”, Tobias LindnerState Secretary at the Foreign Office, at a defense conference in Berlin.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is confident the alliance will find a solution soon, he said after meeting with the German Defense Minister on Tuesday. “At this pivotal moment in the war, we need to deliver heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we need to do it faster,” Stoltenberg said.
New German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said there was no disunity among the allies over sending heavy battle tanks to Ukraine and said Berlin would act quickly if there was a positive decision to do so. However, he stressed that NATO should not become a party to the war in Ukraine.
German defense group Rheinmetall could deliver 139 Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine if needed, a company spokesperson told the RND media group on Monday.
The Kremlin warned on Monday that the Ukrainian people “will pay the price” if the West decides to send tanks to support Kyiv. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said divisions in Europe over whether to provide tanks to Kyiv showed there was growing “nervousness” within the NATO alliance. Peskov also rejected Washington’s announcement that it planned to impose sanctions on Russian private mercenary Wagner Group.
Finlandthe Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto signaled a possible pause in talks with Turkey over Finnish ambitions to join NATO alongside Sweden, which he says is due to pressure from Turkey’s upcoming elections.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell presented the new EU military aid program to Ukraine worth 500 million euros, after the meeting of 27 foreign ministers foreigners from the bloc in Brussels on Monday. The package was approved with an additional €45 million for the EU military training mission for Ukraine. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said his country would not block the EU decision.
Russiaambassador of Estonia, Vladimir Lipayevaccused the West of arming the Baltic state with weapons that could hit St. Petersburg.
Russian forces continue to “suffer an operational stalemate and heavy casualties”, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. A Defense Ministry intelligence update on Monday also said that new disciplinary measures introduced by Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of staff and new commander in Ukraine, had drawn “skeptical feedback”, particularly in response the decision to ban soldiers from wearing beards.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was willing to negotiate with Ukraine in the early months of the war, but the United States and other Western countries advised Kyiv against doing so. Lavrov was speaking during his visit to South Africa on Monday, where he met Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, a month before the South African military is to hold a joint military exercise with Russia and China on its east coast. On Tuesday, Lavrov visited Eswatini.
Germany began moving its Patriot air defense systems into Polish territory near the Ukrainian border on Monday, where they will be deployed to prevent stray missile strikes. Berlin’s offer to deploy three of its Patriot units to Poland came after two men were killed by a stray Ukrainian missile that hit the Polish village of Wired in November.
Andrey Medvedev, a former commander of the Russian mercenary group Wagner who recently fled to Norway, was apprehended by police, he told the Guardian on Monday. Medvedev’s Norwegian lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, said police decided to apprehend Medvedev on Sunday evening after a “strong disagreement” with the former Wagner soldier over living conditions in the safe house where he was living since arriving in Norway.