Changes in the leadership of the Ukrainian army after losing territory to Russian forces on the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk fronts.
Arabian Sea Newspaper - Special
Arabian Sea_AFP: Ukrainian media reported on Monday, citing military sources, that the commander of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky, had issued a decision to dismiss two senior officers after losing control of territory in areas under their supervision. Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, citing two high-level military sources, indicated that Syrsky made the decision to dismiss the two officers in charge of the 17th and 20th Corps in the past two weeks, and Interfax-Ukraine news agency published a similar report on the subject. According to the newspaper, the 17th Army Corps, led by Volodymyr Selenko, was stationed in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukrainian forces lost control of at least one village on the banks of the Dnipro River. As for the 20th Army Corps, led by Maksym Kytuhin, it was stationed on the administrative border between the Donetsk region in the east of the country and Dnipropetrovsk in the center, and that area witnessed an announcement by Russian forces of achieving a series of successes and controlling a number of villages. Interfax reported that the Ukrainian army command assigned the two officers to other tasks. For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed on Monday that its forces had taken control of a village in the Zaporizhzhia region. Russian forces, in light of the war that has been going on for more than three and a half years, are seeking to continue their operations aimed at advancing westward, focusing on the Donetsk region. In addition to the progress announced in Dnipropetrovsk, Russian forces are exerting pressure on parts of the Kharkiv region in the northeast, especially around the largely destroyed city of Kupiansk. At the same time, Russian forces are trying to maintain their presence in the Sumy region on the northern border, despite statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, quoting Syrsky, that Kyiv forces are regaining control of territory near the border. Meanwhile, two people were killed in Russian strikes targeting the Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv regions of southern Ukraine, according to local authorities on Tuesday. The head of the military administration in Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, explained that the attack also injured nine people. The governor of Mykolaiv, Vitaly Kim, confirmed the death of a tractor driver after the Russians targeted a farm in the town of Chornomorska, and condemned what he described as a "deliberate attack on civilians."
