President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the Ukrainian parliament on Sunday to fire Defense Minister Oleksi Reznikov and replace him with Rustem Umerov. It is the most important cabinet change in Ukraine since the outbreak of war. Reznikov’s position has become untenable after new suspicions of corruption were raised about the armed forces procurement department. His ministry is said to have spent millions of euros on winter coats on what were in fact overpriced, unusable summer coats.
“I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and different forms of interaction, both with the military and with society as a whole,” Zelensky said. Umerov, 41, now heads the Ukrainian State Property Fund. Among other things, he led the negotiations on the grain deal with Turkey and Russia.
‘Breakthrough first line’
The announcement came shortly after news that Ukrainian forces had broken through the first line of Russian defenses. Ukrainian general in command of the counter-offensive in the south of the country, Oleksandr Tarnavski, said that The Guardian. The Ukrainian counter-offensive, which has been progressing at a slow pace for weeks, could gain momentum as a result.
“We are now between the first and second lines of defense,” General Tarnavski said. He does not say where along the front this is the case. But in all probability he is referring to the recent progress made near the Robotyne place.
Russia has built hundreds of miles of defenses to deter the Ukrainians from breaching the Russian supply route to the Crimea peninsula – thus liberating the south of the country.
Kremlin says nothing
Huge Russian minefields are the main reason that the counter-offensive has so far been slower than Ukraine had hoped. Behind the minefields lie the Russian artillery and troops, which are firing on the approaching Ukrainians. Tarnavsky now revealed that at night in the dark, his infantry made a passage through the minefield, meter by meter, allowing the Ukrainians to break through.
The Russians didn’t believe we would come here
Oleksandr Tarnavsky general
General Tarnavski told the British newspaper he estimates that Russia has spent 60 percent of its time and resources on the first line of defense, with the rest split between the second and third lines. “I don’t think the Russians believed that the Ukrainians would get through this line of defense. They had been preparing for more than a year,” said Tarnavski. “There is a very big difference between the first and second line of defense.” The Kremlin has not yet said anything about breaking through the lines.
Allies
Tar-nav-ski first made his statements against the British newspaper The Guardian; the British lead the military support to Ukraine in Europe. The country is the world’s second largest donor to Ukraine’s defence, with aid packages totaling £4.6 billion (5.4 billion euros) so far. Ukraine’s allies grew restless in recent months as the spring and eventually summer offensive seemed to lose momentum.
“The modest progress made this summer shows that overcoming a well-prepared conventional battlefield defense may be one of the most difficult operations of war, but it is possible,” said British retired general Richard Barrons, opposite FT. “Not in 2023, but in 2024 or 2025.”
Read also: How Ukraine struggles with the minefields
The Russian army, meanwhile, is still heavily involved in its attack in northeastern Ukraine. Russia is probably trying to keep part of the Ukrainian armed forces there busy, so that these troops cannot go to the offensive in the South.