War in Ukraine, day 767. Zelenski continues the changes in his administration with new dismissals of advisers

The most important events of the last 24 hours:

• Elon Musk: Ukraine risks losing Odessa and access to the Black Sea
• Russia is trying to strengthen the defenses of its Novorossiisk port
• Russia claims to have struck Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and gas production facilities
• Pope calls for ‘a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine’
• France will deliver “hundreds” of old but “still functional” armored vehicles to Ukraine
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the biannual military recruitment
• The Russian military has withdrawn almost all of its major ships from ports on the Crimean peninsula
• Nine Russian missiles and nine drones were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses
• Russia launched 16 missiles and 11 drones at Ukraine in overnight airstrike
• Zelenski continues the changes in his administration with new dismissals of advisers
• Ukraine: new power outages in four regions
• Volodymyr Zelensky accuses, in the American press, that Kiev “lost 6 months” due to the blockade in Congress

Update 20:45 Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal had a salary income of about $25,000 in 2023, while his wife and daughter earned just over $200,000, Ukrinform news agency reported, which consulted his wealth declaration , according to The Kyiv Independent.

Update 18:45 Ukraine risks losing Odessa and access to the Black Sea if it does not agree to negotiate with Russia, American entrepreneur Elon Musk said, according to TASS.

Elon Musk wrote on the X network (formerly Twitter) that Russia “will definitely gain more ground” in Ukraine and that if the war lasts long, “Odessa will also fall.”

The billionaire said that while there is “no chance” of Russia taking all of Ukraine, it is also difficult for Kiev to maintain control over the territory “which does not have strong natural barriers,” according to TASS.

He criticized the Ukrainian counter-offensive saying that “it was a tragic waste of lives for Ukraine to attack a larger army that had defenses in depth, minefields and more powerful artillery”.

Update 18:00 Russia is trying to strengthen the defense of its Novorossiisk port against possible Ukrainian attacks, the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily report on March 31, reports The Kyiv Independent.

“A recent analysis of the images identified four barges positioned at the entrance to the Black Sea Fleet facility in the Novorossiisk seaport. This is an effort to increase the port’s defenses against attacks by rudderless Ukrainian surface ships,” the British specialists say.

Update 16:25 Russia has lost 442,170 soldiers in Ukraine since the start of the war, according to the Ukrainian military.

According to the quoted source, 650 Russian soldiers died in the last day.

Update 14:05 The Russian Air Force carried out a massive attack on the installations of the energy infrastructure and the gas industry in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday, informs Reuters.

The ministry said it used “long-range high-precision air weapons” and drones.

“As a result of this strike, the operation of defense industry enterprises involved in the manufacture and repair of weapons, equipment and ammunition has been disrupted. All strike objectives were achieved. The designated objectives were hit,” the ministry said.

Update 12:45 France will deliver “hundreds” of old but “still functional” armored vehicles and Aster missiles to Ukraine as part of a new aid package for Kiev in its war against Russia, according to Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, quoted by AFP.

“To maintain such a large front line, the Ukrainian army needs, for example, our armored personnel carriers (AVBs): this is absolutely key for troop mobility,” explained Sébastien Lecornu in an interview for In the Tribune published on Saturday evening, writes Agerpres.

“This old equipment, still functional, will bring benefits to Ukraine in significant quantities. We can talk about hundreds of these for 2024 and early 2025,” he added.

The famous VAB armored personnel carriers, over 40 years old, are being replaced in the French army by the new generation Griffon armored vehicles.

Responding to Kiev’s pressing demands to strengthen its air defense capabilities, Paris will also “unlock a new batch of Aster 30 missiles” for the SAMP/T MAMBA device, the equivalent of the US Patriot system. “We are also developing long-range munitions – operated in a very short period of time, in order to deliver them to the Ukrainians this summer,” added the minister.

Update 11:30 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the six-month military recruitment, 150,000 men being called up for compulsory military service, Reuters and DPA report on Sunday.

In Russia, all men who have reached the age of 18 must complete a mandatory 12-month military service or equivalent training for those pursuing higher education.

In July of last year, the State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament) voted to raise the maximum age up to which men can be recruited from 27 to 30. The new law entered into force on January 1 this year.

Compulsory military service is a sensitive subject in Russia.

Legally, conscriptions cannot be carried out to fight outside Russia and have been exempted from limited mobilization since 2022, when at least 300,000 men with completed military service have been sent to fight in Ukraine.

In September last year, Putin signed a decree by which 130,000 were called up for the six-monthly military conscription.

Update 10:50 During his Easter Sunday message from the Vatican, Pope Francis called for “a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine,” according to AFP.

“While calling for respect for the principles of international law, I call for a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine,” the Pope told an estimated 60,000 worshipers.

Update 09:45 The Russian military has withdrawn almost all of its major ships from ports on the Crimean peninsula following successful Ukrainian strikes on the Black Sea Fleet, Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said on Saturday, The Kyiv Independent reports.

In recent months, Ukraine has claimed strikes on several Russian ships, forcing the navy to redeploy them to safer waters.

Russia has now withdrawn all its major ships except the Cyclone missile carrier, Pletenchuk said.

According to him, Cyclone “hasn’t launched a missile yet.”

Russia began redeploying its Black Sea Fleet to Novorossiisk last year after a series of strikes by Ukraine, including a missile attack on its headquarters in Sevastopol on September 22.

The Strategic Communications Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (StratCom) recently announced that as of early February 2024, 33 percent of the warships of the Black Sea Fleet have been “disabled,” including 24 ships and one submarine.

Update 09:00 The Air Defense Forces destroyed 18 aerial targets: nine Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles and nine Shahed-136/131 drones, reports ukrinform.net.

The announcement was made by the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Mykola Oleshchuk, on his Telegram channel.

During the night of March 31, 2024, the Russians attacked with 14 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles launched from Tu-95ms strategic aircraft (Saratov region – Russian Federation), 11 Shahed attack drones (Primorsko-Akhtarsk – Russian Federation , Crimea), an Iskander-M ballistic missile (Crimea) and a Kh-59 guided missile (Zaporozhia).

According to reports, missiles fired by Russian strategic bombers attacked the western regions of Ukraine.

Update 08:00 Russia launched 16 missiles and 11 drones at Ukraine in an overnight airstrike, the Ukrainian Air Force announced on Sunday morning, Reuters reports.

In a statement on Telegram, the air force said it managed to shoot down nine drones and nine missiles, but did not say what their targets were.

For more than a week, Russia has significantly stepped up airstrikes against Ukrainian energy facilities, causing significant damage and leaving Ukrainians to fear further blackouts, as happened in the first winter of the war.

Ukraine’s largest private power firm, DTEK, said on Saturday that five of its six plants were damaged or destroyed, with 80 percent of generating capacity lost, and that repairs could take up to 18 months.

Update 00:00 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed a number of officials from his administration, according to a decree published on Saturday, while Ukraine is facing a difficult military situation on the front in the face of the Russian military offensive, DPA reports.

One of the newly dismissed persons is presidential adviser Sergii Shefir, who has held this position since 2019. A spokesman justified the new dismissals as a measure to “optimize personnel” of the presidential administration.

Zelenskiy has replaced several high-ranking officials in recent months, a process that began with the dismissal of the popular commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zalujnyi, who was meanwhile appointed ambassador to Great Britain.

Oleksii Danilov, dismissed from the post of head of the Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, will also be appointed to the position of ambassador in the Republic of Moldova. In his speech on Friday evening, Zelenski claimed that Danilov wanted a position in diplomacy.

A decree published before this speech also confirmed the dismissal of two deputies from the presidential administration.

More than two years after the start of the Russian invasion, the situation of the Ukrainian army at the front is difficult. Struggling with ammunition after US aid remains blocked in the US Congress and the European Union has failed to deliver the promised quantities, Ukrainian troops are struggling against a larger and better-equipped Russian army that has returned to the offensive in eastern Ukraine after the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive last summer. However, the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Oleksandr Sîrski, says that his troops have managed to stabilize the front.

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