Ukraine is preparing to replace Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov as the head of military intelligence, a close associate of the Ukrainian president said on Sunday. Reznikov will be replaced by the head of military intelligence of the GUR, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Zelenskyi’s parliamentary bloc announced. Reznikov was under pressure because of the corruption scandal in the ministry.

The latest on the war in Ukraine, day 348:

A brief summary of recent events:

• Zelensky stripped the citizenship of several influential former politicians on Saturday as part of the latest move to “cleanse” Ukraine of pro-Russian influences.
• Fierce fighting in Ukraine’s Donetsk region is “very difficult,” the Ukrainian president said, as Kyiv prepares for a possible Russian offensive this month ahead of the first anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.
• The head of the Russian private militia, Wagner, said on Sunday that there was fierce fighting in the northern parts of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been the center of an offensive by Russian forces for several weeks.
• Ukrainian troops have kept the village of Bilogorivka under control, Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Sunday, adding that the situation there is tense but under control. Belogorivka is the last part of Luhansk held by Ukrainian troops.
• Repair crews worked around the clock to restore the power system of the Black Sea port of Odessa after a fire that left hundreds of thousands of residents without electricity.
• International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol said on Sunday that Russia’s oil price cap likely cut Moscow’s oil and gas export earnings by nearly 30 percent in January, or about $8 billion, from a year ago.
• Ukraine has sent letters to companies that support the International Olympic Committee, urging them not to allow Russian athletes to participate in the Paris Olympics, Zelenskyi said.
• Moscow and Tehran will build a factory in Russia that will be able to supply more than 6,000 Iranian-developed drones for the war in Ukraine, officials in the US ally said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand released a video of the first German Leopard 2 tank being loaded onto a plane bound for Ukraine.
• Ukraine has reservations about repelling a possible Russian offensive this month, although the West’s reluctance to send planes “will cost many lives,” Reznikov said.
• According to American Enterprise Institute analyst Brady Africa, Russian troops have built a base in northern Crimea.
• Russian troops confiscated Ukrainian books from libraries and schools in the occupied east of Luhansk region and burned them at thermal power stations, the Center of National Resistance reports.
• India is playing an increasingly important role in supplying world oil markets, buying increasing amounts of cheap Russian oil, which it refines into fuel for Europe and the United States.
• Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine at the start of the war, said in March that Vladimir Putin had promised him he would not kill Zelensky.
• Olaf Scholz said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi agreed that weapons supplied from the West would not be used to attack Russian territory..

———————-

• Sunday’s military events were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro