Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suspended the head of Ukraine’s spy agency (SBU) and the prosecutor general in the wake of treason cases in the two organisations.
President Zelenskyy on Sunday suspended Ivan Bakanov and Iryna Venediktova. However, the officials are yet to comment on their suspension.
According to the media, over 60 former employees were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied areas.
“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state… pose very serious questions to the relevant heads (of the two organisations),” President Zelenskyy said in a video address late Sunday night.
On the suspensions, Deputy Head of the President’s Office Andriy Smyrnov said that the President’s decision did not mean the dismissal of officials, Ukrinform reported.
Official checks will be carried out, after which the President will decide whether to file an appropriate motion at the parliament, Andriy Smyrnov said.
President Zelenskyy has assigned temporary duties of the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine to Vasyl Maliuk.
Earlier, Six people have been killed after Russia’s military shelled a building in the eastern Ukrainian town of Toretsk, Ukrainian emergency service officials said on July 18.
“Early in the morning, the town of Toretsk was shelled. A two-story building with people inside was destroyed,” the Ukrainian State Service for Emergency Situations said in a statement on social media.
“Rescuers found and recovered the bodies of five dead people in total. Three people were rescued from the rubble and one of them died in hospital,” the statement said.
The service posted photographs on social media of rescue workers digging through rubble and what was left of the devastated building, and said the search for survivors had ended.
Toretsk, a town with an estimated population of 30,000 people, is located some 50 kilometers south of Kramatorsk, one of the last Ukrainian-controlled towns in the industrial east.
On July 17, a Ukrainian military official said Russia was preparing for the next stage of its offensive in Ukraine following orders from Moscow to step up military operations. He said Moscow’s main goal was to fully capture the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in the east — which make up the Donbas — but with attacks occurring in central, northeastern, and southern Ukraine as well.
“It is not only missile strikes from the air and sea,” said Vadym Skibitskiy, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence. “We can see shelling along the entire line of contact, along the entire front line. There is an active use of tactical aviation and attack helicopters.
“There is indeed a certain activation of the enemy along the entire front line…Clearly preparations are now under way for the next stage of the offensive.”
Kyiv has said in recent days that its forces are themselves preparing for a massive counteroffensive to reclaim land previously lost, especially in the south.
