Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy removed a long-serving aide and several advisers on Saturday in an ongoing reorganization while Russia launched new attacks during the night.
Zelenskyy removed top aide Serhiy Shefir from his position as first assistant, a role he had held since 2019. The Ukrainian president also terminated three advisers, and two presidential representatives overseeing volunteer activities and soldiers’ rights.
No immediate explanation was provided for the most recent changes in a extensive personnel shakeup over the past few months. This included the dismissal 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. He was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom earlier this month.
Ukraine’s air force reported on Saturday that Russia sent 12 Shahed drones overnight, nine of which were shot down, and launched four missiles into eastern Ukraine.
Russia launched a barrage of 38 missiles, 75 airstrikes and 98 attacks from multiple rocket launchers in the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s armed forces said in social media posts.
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 by Russian shelling last week. Power outage schedules were still in place for around 120,000 people in the region, where 700,000 people had lost electricity after the plant was hit on March 22.
Russia has increased its assaults on Ukrainian energy infrastructure lately, causing significant damage in several regions.
Officials in the Poltava region said on Saturday there had been “several hits” to an infrastructure facility, without specifying whether it was an energy facility.
Meanwhile, the toll of Friday’s massive barrage of 99 drones and missiles hitting regions across Ukraine became clear on Saturday, with local officials in the Kherson region announcing the death of one civilian. A resident of the Dnipropetrovsk region died in a hospital from shell wounds, according to regional Gov. Serhiy Lisak.
