KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy removed a long-serving aide and multiple advisors on Saturday as part of an ongoing reorganization, while Russia carried out new attacks overnight.
Zelenskyy removed top aide Serhiy Shefir from his position as first assistant, a role he had held since 2019. The Ukrainian president also dismissed three advisors, as well as two presidential representatives responsible for overseeing volunteer activities and soldiers’ rights.
No immediate explanation was provided for the latest changes in a broad personnel shakeup over the past few months. This shakeup included the removal of Oleksii Danilov, who served as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and Valerii Zaluzhnyi as head of the armed forces on Feb. 8. Zaluzhnyi was appointed as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom earlier this month.
Ukraine’s air force reported on Saturday that Russia deployed 12 Shahed drones overnight, nine of which were intercepted, and launched four missiles into eastern Ukraine.
Russia carried out a series of 38 missile strikes, 75 airstrikes, and 98 attacks from various rocket launchers over the past 24 hours, according to social media posts from Ukraine’s armed forces.
Two individuals were killed and one was injured in Russian shelling in Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk province, stated regional Gov. Vadym Filashkin on Saturday.
Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo announced on Saturday that the Zmiiv Thermal Power Plant, one of the largest thermal power plants in the eastern Kharkiv region, was completely destroyed due to Russian shelling last week. Power outage schedules remained in place for approximately 120,000 individuals in the region, where 700,000 people lost electricity after the plant was targeted on March 22.
Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent days, causing significant damage in various regions.
Officials in the Poltava region stated on Saturday that there were “several hits” to an infrastructure facility, without specifying whether it was an energy facility.
Meanwhile, the toll from Friday’s massive barrage of 99 drones and missiles striking regions across Ukraine became apparent on Saturday, with local officials in the Kherson region announcing the death of one civilian. A resident of the Dnipropetrovsk region passed away in a hospital due to shell wounds, according to regional Gov. Serhiy Lisak.