(Bakhmout) The head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, will become the new Minister of Defense of Ukraine, which expects a major offensive by Russian troops, whose pressure is currently increasing in the East.
The appointment of Mr. Boudanov, 37, is “perfectly logical in time of war”, since “war dictates the movement of personnel”, explained MP David Arakhamia, who announced on Sunday evening the replacement for the Defense portfolio. of Oleksiï Reznikov, 56 years old.
The latter had just promised a few hours earlier during a press conference “audits” within his ministry following a corruption scandal linked to the supply of the army, in the midst of the Russian invasion.
He had recognized on this occasion that the anti-corruption services of his ministry had “failed in their task” and that they had to be “entirely restructured”.
PHOTO DANIEL COLE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov at a press conference in Kyiv
His departure comes at a time when “the situation is very difficult in the region [orientale] from Donetsk, [où] there are fierce battles,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in the evening.
“Many reports already indicate that the occupiers want to do something symbolic in February. To try to avenge their defeats last year. We are seeing this increased pressure in different areas of the frontline,” he added.
Planes !
“Today, when it comes to obtaining weapons, […] we got everything and now we have to get the planes [pour] protect our airspace”, had hammered shortly before in Kyiv the outgoing Ukrainian Minister of Defense.
It could be American F-16s or “other” aircraft, continued Oleksiï Reznikov, before launching: “we will also have the planes”.
He had nevertheless deplored the “reluctance” to deliver such aircraft to his country, which will “cost more lives” to the Ukrainians.
The Minister had in the same breath promised that the long-range weapons to be soon supplied to Ukraine would not be used to target Russian territory, but only the occupied areas, certain Western capitals being concerned about a risk of escalation of the conflict that began almost a year ago.
Fierce fighting in Bakhmout
Asked about a possible withdrawal from Bakhmout, whose Russian soldiers, supported by mercenaries from the Wagner group, have been trying since the summer to seize, Mr. Reznikov assured Sunday that it was still “a fortress, a symbol”.
The Russians have made small territorial gains in the region in recent weeks in the hope of breaking the Ukrainian lock on this largely destroyed city and where the two belligerents are suffering heavy losses.
In particular, they took the town of Soledar and more recently the village of Blagodatné.
“Fierce fighting is taking place in the northern districts [de Bakhmout] for every street, every house, every stairwell, ”said Sunday the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Evguéni Prigojine, whose men are on the front line on the spot.
PHOTO YASUYOSHI CHIBA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
A destroyed apartment in the town of Lyman
“The Ukrainian armed forces are not retreating. They fight to the last man,” he acknowledged.
In the basement of a church
AFP journalists attended a liturgy in Bakhmout on Sunday in the basement of the church with the golden bulb of All Saints in the presence of about twenty people, including two Ukrainian soldiers.
Three women sang hymns against the backdrop of the firefight. The room was lit only by about twenty candles and a portable lamp used by the two priests to read the Bible.
“Today I prayed that everything would be better for me after my death,” said 20-year-old Serafim Chernychov outside the church.
“Last night a missile hit my garden and a bullet entered my house, it could have hit me. So we have to understand that life is short, I can die now or in 30 years,” he said. “If I am killed, it will be God’s will,” he added, resigned.
Lioubov Avramenko, 84, said he prayed “for peace”. “We are sitting in a basement without water, gas or electricity,” she testified.
On Saturday evening, President Zelensky had acknowledged that the situation was “complicating” on the front, in particular in Bakhmout, which he had earlier sworn to defend “as long as possible”.
In this region, during the last 24 hours, several missiles have hit Druzhkivka, where four people have been injured, the staff of the Ukrainian forces said at the end of the afternoon.
Strikes from north to south
Five other civilians were wounded Sunday in two Russian strikes on the center of Kharkiv, the second Ukrainian agglomeration, in the northeast of the country, reported the head of the regional military administration, Oleg Sinegoubov. A four-storey building was “totally destroyed”, the army said.
In the south, the city of Kherson, reconquered in November by the Ukrainians, was targeted three times the same day by Russian artillery, announced the local authorities, who reported one injured.
And “hundreds of thousands” of residents of the southern Odessa region are still without power following a technical incident the day before at a power plant, which has been the victim of constant Russian bombing lately, regretted in the evening Volodymyr Zelensky.