Without military aid from the USA, Ukraine cannot adequately defend itself against Russia. Zelenskyj was convinced of this. The Ukrainian president is also continuing to restructure his environment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again made clear how much Ukraine depends on US military aid in an interview with the Washington Post. According to Zelensky, a further blockade in Congress would mean that the armed forces would have to withdraw more and more.
“If there is no US support, that means we have no anti-aircraft defenses, no Patriot missiles, no electronic warfare jammers, no 155-millimeter artillery shells,” he says. “That means we are retreating, retreating, step by step, in small steps,” he said. “We're trying to find a way not to retreat.”
Several employees have to vacate positions
That Congress releases further aid – Zelensky can only continue to appeal to the USA. The president, however, has control over the restructuring of his staff: today Zelensky announced that he would lay off additional employees. Zelensky's long-time assistant Serhiy Schefir, who had served the Ukrainian head of state since 2019, as well as three advisors and two representatives of the presidential office had to take their hats off. They were responsible for volunteer work and soldiers' rights. Zelensky did not initially provide an explanation.
In the past few months he had laid off several senior employees several times. It was only on Tuesday that Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Council for Security and Defense, had to leave his post. On February 8, Zelensky deposed army chief Valery Zalushny and later appointed him Ukrainian ambassador to Great Britain.
The layoffs came at a time when Ukraine is again increasingly being attacked by Russia. According to Ukrainian information, Russia fired twelve Shahed drones and four missiles into the east of the country during the night. Nine of the drones were intercepted. The Ukrainian army spoke in social media posts of 38 rockets, 75 air strikes and 98 attacks with multiple rocket launchers within 24 hours.
Ukrainian Energy infrastructure Target of the attacks
The Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo announced that one of the largest thermal power plants in the Kharkiv region had been completely destroyed by Russian shelling. Around 120,000 people in the region continued to be affected by power outages. After the attack on the power plant on March 22nd, 700,000 people were initially cut off from the power supply.
Russia has caused significant damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure in recent days. Officials in the Poltava region said an infrastructure facility was hit several times. They did not initially say what kind of facility it was.
The extent of Russian attacks on Friday on several regions of the country is also clear. In the Kherson region, local authorities reported the death of a civilian. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Serhiy Lysak reported that a resident had died in hospital from his injuries.
