KYIV -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed a top aide and several advisers in an ongoing reshuffle on March 30 as Russia launched new drone and missile attacks that killed at least two people.
Zelenskiy dismissed Serhiy Shefir from his post of first assistant to the president and also let go three advisers and two presidential representatives overseeing volunteer activities and soldiers’ rights.
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It follows the dismissal of Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, on March 26. Zelenskiy appointed Oleksandr Lytvynenko, the chief of the foreign intelligence service, to head the council.
In February, Zelenskiy replaced the head of the armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, amid a dispute over mobilization. Shefir is a longtime acquaintance of Zelenskiy and a co-founder of their production company, Kvartal-95.
No reason was given immediately for the March 30 shake-up that comes hours after the Ukrainian Air Force said Russian forces fired four missiles into eastern Ukraine overnight, as well as 12 Shahed drones across the country.
It said nine of the drones were shot down by Ukraine in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Odesa, and Poltava regions. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Two people were killed in Russian shelling in the eastern town of Krasnohorivka, which lies directly on the front line in Donetsk Province, regional Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
“The town was under enemy fire during the night and morning,” Filashkin wrote on social media on March 30 and urged civilians living there to evacuate.
Russia has launched an air-strike campaign focusing on Ukraine's energy sector over the past week, firing 190 rockets, 140 Shahed drones, and 700 anti-aircraft missiles in what Zelenskiy earlier described as a “dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror.”
Ukrainian energy company Centrenerho said on March 30 that the Zmiyiv Thermal Power Plant, one of the largest thermal power plants in the Kharkiv region, was completely destroyed by Russian shelling last week, leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity.
Ukraine's largest private power firm, DTEK, lost about 50 percent of its capacity after being hit by Russian attacks, Ukrainian power distributor Yasno said this week.
Officials in Poltava said on March 30 that there had been “several hits” to an infrastructure facility in the central region, but did not say whether it was an energy facility.
Russian forces are also “actively trying” to advance on the front lines, with 72 combat clashes taking place in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces over the past day, the Ukrainian military said in its daily bulletin on the morning of March 30.
Ukrainian forces repelled at least 40 Russian assaults near the cities of Avdiyivka, Bakhmut, and Lyman in the Donetsk region and Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region, according to the bulletin.
“Ukrainian defenders pushed back 16 attacks in Lyman…and Bilohorivka, where the enemy -- with the support of aviation -- tried to break through the defenses of our troops," the military said.
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Ukraine has been forced onto a defensive footing on the front lines in the past few months, as Kyiv struggles with ammunition shortages amid delays to a $60 billion aid package from the United States.
Russia has significantly ramped up air and ground strikes since the beginning of the year, taking advantage of Ukraine’s dwindling weapons stockpiles amid a hold-up of critical U.S. military aid. Congress has been unable to pass an additional $60 billion in Ukraine aid since October due to partisan disagreements over aspects of the bill that deal with protecting the U.S. southern border from migrants.
In an interview with The Washington Post published on March 29, Zelenskiy warned that Ukrainian forces will have to retreat “step by step, in small steps,” if Kyiv doesn’t receive the U.S. military aid that has been blocked by political disputes in Congress.
"If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-milimeter artillery rounds," Zelenskiy said, adding that his country is “trying to find some way not to retreat."