The head of the Ukrainian security services has been fired for alleged “treason.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also fired Attorney General Iryna Venediktova amid claims that dozens of employees in his office have “worked against our state.”
Mr Zelenskyy said: “Such a set of crimes against the foundations of state national security and the links between the Ukrainian security forces and the Russian special services raise very serious questions about their respective leaders.”
Ivan Bakanov, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (known as SBU), was a longtime friend of Mr. Zelenskyy, according to Ukrainian news agencies.
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Image: President Zelenskky has wielded an ax against one of his top officials
The news comes when former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that any foreign attack on the Crimean region would provoke a “day of trial.”
Russia annexed the Crimean Black Sea Peninsula to Ukraine in 2014.
At the time, Moscow also supported pro-Russian armed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, in the event of an attack on Crimea, Medvedev said: “Judgment Day Trial will come very quickly and hard. It will be very difficult to hide.”
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2:53 Russia puts an end to the “operational pause”
The United States warned against movement that “would endanger humanity”
Medvedev’s statement came a day after a Ukrainian official suggested that Crimea, which most of the world still recognizes as part of Ukraine, could be a target for U.S.-made HIMARS missiles, recently deployed by Kyiv.
Medvedev has already warned the US of the dangers of trying to punish a nuclear power like Russia for its actions in Ukraine, saying this could “endanger humanity”.
“The new reality has begun”: listen to Ukraine War Diaries
On Sunday, on the front line, Russian missiles continued to strike industrial facilities in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, said its mayor Oleksandr Senkevych.
Mykolaiv has faced regular attacks in recent weeks as the Russians have tried to soften Ukrainian defenses.
The Russian army has declared the goal of cutting off the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine to the Romanian border.
If successful, this effort would be an overwhelming blow to Ukraine’s economy and trade and allow Moscow to secure a land bridge with Moldova’s Transnistrian separatist region, which hosts a Russian military base.