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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired the commander of the country’s air force in the wake of a deadly F-16 crash.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website 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.
“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.
It comes as at least seven people, including a 14-year-old girl, were killed and dozens more were injured in a reported Russian glide bomb attack on a 12-storey apartment block and playground in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian officials.
Zelensky reposted a video of the aftermath of the strike, using the incident to reiterate his calls for Kyiv’s Western allies to allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is legitimate, says NATO’s Stoltenberg
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is legitimate and covered by Kyiv’s right to self-defence, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag in his first reaction to the advance into Russian territory.
“Ukraine has a right to defend itself. And according to international law, this right does not stop at the border,” Stoltenberg told the paper, adding that NATO had not been informed about Ukraine’s plans beforehand and did not play a role in them.
The NATO chief said Ukraine was running a risk with the advance onto Russian territory but that it was up to Kyiv how to conduct its military campaign.
“(Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy has made clear that the operation aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian attacks from across the border,” he said.
“Like all military operations, this comes with risks. But it is Ukraine’s decision how to defend itself.”
Kyiv launched a major cross-border incursion into the Kursk region on Aug. 6, while Moscow’s troops keep pressing towards the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
The incursion was also discussed at a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine-Council on Wednesday that was requested by Kyiv amid Moscow’s biggest wave of air attacks on its neighbour.
The council, grouping members of the Western military alliance and Ukraine, was established last year to enable closer coordination between the alliance and Kyiv.
Russia has called the Kursk operation a “major provocation” and said it would retaliate.
Russia jails journalist for eight years over Ukraine war reporting
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:
Russia says its forces seize another settlement in Ukraine’s Donetsk region
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 residential building burns after Russian attack on Kharkiv that killed seven
Ukrainian residential building burns after Russian attack on Kharkiv kills seven
A Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv hit a residential building and a playground on Friday 30 August, killing seven people and injuring at least 77 more, local authorities said. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky shared a video of the aftermath of the strike, and said a 14-year-old girl was among the dead. Ihor Terekhov, the city’s mayor, had earlier said on Telegram that one child was killed in the playground. The 12-storey apartment block caught fire as a result of the strike and the death toll from the attack climbed to seven when a woman’s body was recovered from the rubble. About 20 of the injured were in severe condition, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. One end of the block was engulfed in black smoke, with many of the upper floors in flames. Several cars parked outside were gutted by fire.
Ukrainian air defence downs 24 Russian drones, Kyiv says
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 fires air force commander after fatal F-16 crash
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.
Ukraine calls for Putin’s arrest when he visits Mongolia next week
“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:
Russia says five killed and 46 injured in Ukraine strike on Belgorod
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.
With men at the front lines, women watch over Ukraine’s night sky for Russian drones
Ukraine says US experts are helping figure out why a Ukrainian F-16 crashed in the war with Russia
Source: independent.co.uk
