OUR Ukrainian chairman Vladimir Zelensky on Saturday issued a decree dismissing a senior member of the security forces and indicated in a separate statement that his efforts to clean up the government would continue.

In recent weeks, dozens of officials have been sacked and investigations launched as part of Kyiv’s efforts to fight corruption.

Zelensky yesterday, by his decree, dismissed the deputy commander of the National Guard Ruslan Juba, without specifying the reasons for his decision.

In addition, yesterday the Ukrainian president, in his daily and overnight message, indicated that he met with representatives of the defense sector and law enforcement agencies to discuss ways to protect institutions from what he called foreign and domestic attempts to reduce their efficiency and effectiveness.

Referring to the expulsion, Zelensky said: “All this activity is not only about specific incidents or criminal proceedings (…) the state will continue to modernize its own institutions. The cleanliness of the state infrastructure project must be ensured.”

Russia says it has closed part of the railway network

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday that it has closed sections of Ukraine’s rail network that allow the transport of Western weapons, ammunition, supplies and reserves. He did not specify which parts of the network he was referring to, nor did he provide further details.

The announcement follows previous massive missile strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. According to Moscow, all designated targets were hit.

The Kremlin recently said it would destroy “all” weapons supplied to Ukraine by NATO member states. “All targets have been hit,” said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. According to him, the energy infrastructures that supply the Ukrainian military industry and the transport system of Ukraine were destroyed.

The day before yesterday, the Ukrainian authorities reported a power outage in several places after massive missile and UAV strikes. However, the Ukrainian side claimed that its forces shot down the vast majority of Russian missiles and drones.

The information of the parties about the course of the war is very often not amenable to independent verification.

Since mid-October, the Russian armed forces have been attacking the energy infrastructure of Ukraine with the help of aircraft and ship-based missiles. Damage to infrastructure leads to power outages across the country, affecting millions of Ukrainians in the middle of winter.

Wagner: The village of Krasna is taken

Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Russian mercenary organization Wagner, said today that its fighters have captured the village of Krasnaya Gora, north of the town of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine, has been the scene of fierce fighting for months. The head of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzny, said on Saturday that Ukraine still controls Bakhmut and is trying to “stabilize” the front line around him.

In an audio message posted today on his Telegram account, Prigozhin said: “Today, after the attack by Wagner PMC troops, the village of Krasnaya Gora was captured.”

Prigozhin also released a video showing Wagner fighters standing in front of a sign at the entrance to Krasnaya Gora.

In his message, Prigozhin indicated that only detachments of Wagner mercenaries were fighting “within a radius of about 50 kilometers” around Bakhmut, and if the city was taken, then by the fighters of the organization.

On Friday, Prigozhin said in an interview that Wagner forces must capture Bakhmut in order to advance, but are facing stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces.

He also calculated that it would take Moscow two years to fully control the two eastern Ukrainian regions – Donetsk and Luhansk – the conquest of which Russia presented as the main goal of the war.

^{According to REUTERS, AFP, APE-MPE}