Ukraine is sacking senior officials in its biggest wartime leadership shake-up

Ukraine on Tuesday sacked the governors of five regions on battlefields with Russia, along with other top officials, in its biggest wartime leadership shake-up since Russia's war on its territory last year.

On the other hand, Berlin received today, Tuesday, an official request from Poland to allow it to send German-made heavy tanks to Ukraine.

The dismissal or resignation decisions included more than a dozen senior Ukrainian officials, most notably the governors of Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.

Major battles between Russia and Ukraine have taken place in the five regions over the past year, giving their rulers extraordinary national prestige.

Among those who left their posts were deputy defense minister, deputy prosecutor general, deputy chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and two deputy ministers responsible for regional development.

The names of some of these officials have been linked to allegations of their involvement in corruption cases.

Ukraine has a history of corruption and shaky governance and is under international pressure to show it deserves billions of dollars in Western aid.

"There are already decisions regarding positions, some today and others tomorrow, concerning officials at various levels in ministries and other central government structures, as well as in regions and in the law enforcement system," Zelensky said in his videotaped nightly speech on Monday.

"The president sees and hears society," said Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelensky. "He responds directly to a major public demand, justice for all."

The campaign for change came two days after Ukraine's deputy infrastructure minister was arrested after he was accused of receiving $400,000 in contract money intended to buy generators, in one of the first major corruption scandals to be revealed since the war began 11 months ago.

The Defense Ministry said that Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who is responsible for providing the forces with food supplies, had submitted his resignation to maintain confidence in the ministry, after what it described as baseless media accusations of corruption.

This came in the wake of the publication of a press report stating that the ministry paid exaggerated money to provide the troops with food, which the ministry denied.

The prosecutor's office did not say why it fired its deputy Oleksiy Simonenko, who was criticized by Ukrainian media for vacationing in Spain.

Although Zelensky did not name any officials in his speech, he announced a new ban on officials spending their holidays abroad.

Kirillo Tymoshenko, deputy director of the President's Office, announced his resignation from his post, without explaining the reason for the resignation.

These changes represent a rare occurrence in a stable Ukrainian leadership during wartime.

Far from sacking the head of Ukraine's State Security Service in July, Zelensky has remained mostly reliant on his team of fellow junior politicians the former TV actor brought to power after his landslide election victory in 2019.

Poland's announcement that it had formally requested Berlin's permission to export German-made tanks to Ukraine appears to have clamped down on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in delaying the decision in what has become a key Allied debate over the best way to shore up Kyiv.

"I hope that this response from Germany will come quickly, because the Germans are dragging their feet, dodging and behaving in an incomprehensible way. We can see that they do not want to help Ukraine defend itself more broadly," Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference.

"We will deal with the measures with the speed they deserve," a German government spokesman said.

For months, Kyiv has pleaded for Western tanks, which it says it badly needs to give its forces the artillery and mobility to break through Russian defense lines and retake occupied territory.

German Leopard tanks, used by many armies across Europe, are widely seen as the perfect choice, available in large numbers and easy to deploy and maintain.

But Berlin has so far resisted pressure to commit any of its Leopard tanks, and has said so far that the Allies have yet to formally request permission to send their own.

"The Germans have already received our request to allow the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine," Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wrote on Twitter.

"I also appeal to the German side to join the countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks. This is our common cause, because the security of the whole of Europe is at stake!"

The German Army Chief of Staff said whether or not to send tanks is a political decision.

A senior official said the decision was ultimately up to Schulz and his government.

"Ultimately, the decision will be made explicitly by the chancellery, and the government will take it collectively," Tobias Lindner, the German foreign minister, told a defense conference organized by the Handelsblatt newspaper in Berlin.

*"Spring will be decisive"

The frontlines of the war have been largely frozen for two months, despite heavy losses on both sides.

It is widely believed that Russia and Ukraine are planning attacks in the coming months.

Western countries pledged billions of dollars in military support last week, but they have not yet responded to Kyiv's request for hundreds of heavy combat tanks, pending a decision from Germany on the fate of its Leopard tanks.

A Ukrainian official said that the coming spring and summer will be decisive.

"If the planned big Russian attack fails this time, this will be the destruction of Russia and Putin," Vadym Skipetsky, deputy director of Ukraine's military intelligence, said in an interview with the Delphi news site.

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