Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky fires air force commander after deadly F-16 crash

Prosecutors convicted Sergei Mikhailov in a court in the Siberian city of Gorno-Altaysk for “spreading false information” about the Russian army that was motivated by “political hatred”, the Net Freedoms Project said.

The 48-year-old journalist and editor at local newspaper Listok, or Leaflet, was arrested in 2022 near Moscow for posting on the publication’s Telegram channel and website about the horrors in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Mariupol.

Rachel Hagan reports:

Russian forces have gained control of the Kirove settlement, known in Ukraine as Verezamske, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the defence ministry said on Saturday.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions which Russia says it has annexed even though it does not fully control all of them, a territorial claim which Kyiv and the West have rejected as illegal and one which Ukraine has vowed to reverse by force.

Russia has been making incremental gains in the region at a time when Ukrainian troops seek to advance in Russia’s Kursk region after a surprise cross-border attack that began on 6 August.

Separately, the defence ministry said in a bulletin about developments in Russia’s Kursk region that its forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks there, including towards settlements of Korenevo and Malaya Loknya.

Russian officials have said Kyiv’s attack on the Kursk region will fail to divert Russian forces away from the east of Ukraine where they are still advancing.

The officials also say Ukraine’s foray into Russian territory will ensnare thousands of its troops in a new front which has little strategic or tactical importance.

Ukrainian air defences shot down 24 out of 52 drones launched by Russia during overnight attacks on eight regions across Ukraine, the air force said on Saturday.

It said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that 25 Shahed drones had fallen on their own and three others had flown towards Russia and Belarus. There were no reports of anybody being hurt in the attacks or of any major damage being caused.

Ukraine uses electronic warfare as well as mobile hunting groups and aircraft defences to repel frequent Russian drone and missile strikes.

Air alerts sounded several times during the overnight drone attacks, with many people rushing to shelters in the middle of the night.

In the capital Kyiv, where alerts lasted for about four hours, it was the fourth drone attack this week, officials said. All drones targeting the city were downed and no major damage was reported, Kyiv city officials said.

Ukrainian air defences also shot down Russian drones in the Poltava, Cherkasy, Kyrovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk regions in central Ukraine, in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north and the Mykolayiv region in the south.

Regional officials in the Cherkasy region said the drones’ debris had damaged several private houses.

The Russian forces also launched five missiles during the attack, the Ukrainian air force said, but gave no other details.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the commander of the country’s air force on Friday, four days after an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners crashed during a Russian bombardment and killed the pilot.

The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website.

“We need to protect people. Protect personnel. Take care of all our soldiers,” Zelenskyy said in an address minutes after the order was published. He said Ukraine needs to strengthen its army on the command level.

Lt. Gen. Anatolii Kryvonozhko was appointed acting air force commander, the army’s general staff said.

The dismissal came on the same day that Oleshchuk directed scathing criticism at a lawmaker who is deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament’s defense committee for her claims that the F-16 was downed by a Patriot air-defense system. Ukraine has received an unspecified number of the U.S.-made systems.

Mariana Bezuhla cited unnamed sources for her claim and demanded punishment for those responsible for the error.

Oleshchuk accused Bezuhla of defaming the air force and discrediting U.S. arms manufacturers and said that he hoped she would face legal consequences for her claims.

“The truth will win,” Bezuhla posted on X shortly after the dismissal order was published.

The air force did not directly deny that the F-16 was hit by a Patriot missile.

US experts have joined the Ukrainian investigation into the crash, the air force said.

“The Ukrainian side hopes that the government of Mongolia is aware of the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said on Telegram.

Shahana Yasmin reports:

Five people were killed and 46 injured in a Ukrainian attack on the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod late on Friday, the local governor said, the latest in a series of strikes by Ukraine on the city in recent months.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said 37 of the injured, including seven children, were taken to hospitals in the city, which lies 40 km (25 miles) north of the border with Ukraine.

Video filmed from inside a vehicle, posted on social media and purporting to show the attack, showed a car being blown up while moving along a road. Seconds later another explosion is seen metres away. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack.

“Once again we call on all responsible governments and relevant international structures to strongly condemn this brutal terrorist attack and publicly distance themselves from the Kyiv regime and its Western curators who commit such crimes,” it said on Saturday.

The ministry added that Russia’s “special military operation” will continue until it reaches all the goals including Ukraine’s “demilitarisation and de-nazification”.

Russia’s Investigation Committee said on its Telegram channel that it had initiated a criminal case into the attack.

Authorities also reported that a woman was injured on Saturday during Ukrainian shelling of the border town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region.

Ukraine has staged frequent attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border regions in recent months, with the city the focal point of the attacks.

Ukraine and Russia say they do not deliberately target civilians in the war that began when Russia sent thousands of troops into its smaller neighbour in February 2022.