Zelensky on May 12 removed Lieutenant General Ivan Havryliuk from the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the top command and control body for all branches of Ukraine's defense apparatus.
Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
The phone call comes as Moscow once again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, with Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming that a ceasefire would give "Kyiv a break to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia."
Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport en-route to Kuala Lumpur International Airport on July 17, 2014. Three hours into the flight, the Boeing-777 was shot down by Russian proxy forces using a Buk surface-to-air missile above Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
"I am grateful for the support and the readiness at the highest level to promote diplomacy," President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the phone conservation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We share the same view on the need for a ceasefire."
The convictions mark a significant development in Britain's efforts to counter Russian intelligence operations amid heightened tensions stemming from Moscow's war against Ukraine and repeated Kremlin threats toward Kyiv's allies.
According to the Verkhovna Rada's website, Ukraine completed the ratification of the U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement on May 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the deal.
"I myself have heard relatives talking: our village is being attacked, let's roll the car out of the garage, maybe they will shell it — at least we will get money. The car is old, we can't sell it," Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Workers pass by coal being unloaded for the Ukrainian state-owned energy company Centrenergo in Odesa, Ukraine, on Sept. 13, 2017. (Vincent Mundy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
An audit by Ukraine's State Audit Service of the state-owned energy company Centrenergo found a number of financial discrepancies, as well as lengthy and unjustified delays on repair work for damaged energy infrastructure, the agency said on Nov. 29.
The financial discrepancies, which included accounting irregularities, unfulfilled contracts, debts, hidden lending, and other questionable commercial decisions, amounted to Hr 5.5 billion ($152 million).
Alla Basalaieva, the head of the State Audit Service, said that the company is in "a state of crisis" and detailed a litany of concerning business decisions.
Although no deliberate criminal wrongdoing was explicitly mentioned, the press release did say that the matter was being referred to the Security Service of Ukraine.
In a separate press release, the audit service said that Centrenergo had delayed much-needed repairs of critical energy infrastructure damaged by Russian attacks.
In one particularly egregious case, a replacement for a transformer destroyed in a Russian attack was not delivered for more than six months, even though it was available and had passed all standard safety requirements. Work began on replacing the transformer only as the weather became cold.
It is unclear why there was such a lengthy delay.
"These (unrepaired) facilities are of strategic importance for the restoration of power-generating capacities, and especially in the conditions of new threats from the enemy to civil infrastructure," said Basalaieva.
Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Alexander Query
