Kyiv Angered by the betrayal in the Ukrainian security apparatus, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed the heads of the secret service and the general public prosecutor’s office. More than 60 employees from these authorities remained in the Russian-occupied areas and collaborated with the enemy, Zelensky said on Sunday evening in Kyiv.
The Presidential Office issued decrees dismissing the head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov and Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova from their posts.
There are 651 criminal cases against employees of the public prosecutor’s office and other law enforcement agencies for high treason and collaboration with Russian services. In 198 cases, those affected were informed that they were under suspicion. This “series of crimes against the foundations of national security” raises questions for agency leaders, the president said.
He confirmed that a senior SBU man formerly in charge of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea had been arrested. He is said to have passed on information to Russia.
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Bakanov has headed the SBU secret service since 2019. No successor has been named for him. The General Prosecutor’s Office is to be temporarily headed by Oleksiy Simonenko.
According to its general staff on Sunday evening, the Ukrainian army repulsed Russian attacks in the Donbass near the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut. From the Sumy region in northern Ukraine, the administration reported more than 50 artillery fires on Sunday. At night, the city of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region was shelled.
Ukrainian displeasure with turbine remains
The turbine dispute is driving a wedge between Ukraine and one of its key military backers. Kyiv will not accept Canada’s decision to return the turbine to Russia via Germany, Zelensky said. After the conversation with Trudeau, he wrote on Twitter that the position on sanctions must be principled. “After the terrorist attacks on Vinnytsia, Mykolayiv, Chasiv Yar and others, the pressure must be increased, not decreased.” He was referring to Russian rocket attacks in Ukrainian cities far from the front that have killed dozens.
The Russian energy company Gazprom has significantly reduced gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany since June, citing the lack of a turbine as the reason for this. With the return, Canada wants to help Germany and other European countries against impending energy shortages.
Scholz sees the EU as the opposite of imperialist Russia
Chancellor Olaf Scholz advocates a stronger and “geopolitical European Union” as a consequence of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In a guest article for the “FAZ”, the SPD politician writes that the EU must close its ranks: “In migration policy, for example, in building a European defense, in technological sovereignty and democratic resilience”.
Scholz described the EU as a “lived antithesis to imperialism and autocracy”, which is why it is a thorn in the side of those in power like Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The Russian missiles on Ukraine not only caused massive destruction, “but also reduced the European and international peace order of the past decades to rubble and ashes”. Scholz assured that Ukraine would be supported as long as it needed it.
According to Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, NATO and Ukraine remain a threat to Russia. As long as NATO and Ukraine do not recognize the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, as part of Russia, there is a danger. That’s what the former president said to veterans in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad). If Ukraine tries to reconquer the peninsula, the “Last Judgment” will befall all Ukrainians, “very quickly and severely,” Medvedev threatened.
This is how the Handelsblatt reports on the Ukraine war and the consequences:
Journalist Ovzyannikova temporarily detained for protesting the war
TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova was temporarily arrested near Moscow on Sunday. Photos were posted on her Telegram channel that allegedly show her being taken into a minibus by police officers. On the night of Monday, the civil rights portal “OVD-Info” reported, citing the lawyer Dmitri Sachwatov, that she was free again. Ovzyannikova posted photos on Friday of herself standing in sight of the Kremlin with a protest poster. “Putin is a murderer,” read the poster. The Russian state television employee, who had previously been loyal to the line, showed a protest poster against the war in a live broadcast in March.
In the Polish capital of Warsaw, Ukrainians and Poles protested against the war in front of the Russian embassy on Sunday.
That’s going to be important today
The EU sanctions package that the foreign ministers are discussing includes, among other things, an import ban on Russian gold. The sanctions could come into effect this week. Developments in the Ukraine war are to be discussed at the meeting in Brussels via video conference with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
More: Don’t miss any development – everything new in our news blog about the Ukraine war