The government of Ukraine has supported the president's decision Vladimir Zelensky to dismiss Ruslan Kravchenko, the head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration, and Filip Pronin, the head of the Poltava Regional State Administration.
Pronin was appointed as the head of the Poltava Regional State Administration in 2023. Prior to this, he served as the deputy head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA).
Kravchenko also took his position in the Kyiv Regional State Administration in 2023. The former head of the administration, Oleksiy Kuleba, has been appointed as the deputy head of the President's Office.
The flight attendant of the “Azerbaijan Airlines” plane, who survived the crash on December 25 near the Kazakh city of Aktau, reported that a critical situation on board arose even before the emergency landing. According to him, a “strange sound” was heard from outside when the aircraft was flying over Grozny.
Two American military personnel, citing intelligence, told NBC News that the Russian air defense mistook the plane for a drone.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and apologized for the crash, though he did not mention that a Russian missile might have hit the aircraft.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also spoke with Aliyev. He instructed partners to share information from Ukrainian intelligence regarding the plane crash.
Ukrainian Special Operations Forces published the continuation of the notes of a North Korean soldier who was killed in the Kursk region. In them, he reveals why he ended up in the war against Ukraine.
According to him, he “grew up under the auspices of the benevolent party,” but allegedly betrayed it and “committed ungrateful acts against the Supreme Commander” Kim Jong-un. To “regain the party's trust,” he went to fight against Ukraine.
The head of the Ukrainian state, Volodymyr Zelensky, suggested that Russia might have instructed Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to threaten to cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine.
He emphasized that Slovakia's share in electricity imports to Ukraine is about 19%. The Ukrainian government is working with its EU neighbors to preserve the necessary volume.
Recently, Fico stated that his country could stop supplying electricity to Ukraine, which is needed during the energy system deficit following Russian shelling. This is due to Kyiv's refusal to resume the transit of Russian gas through its territory.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrski, held a meeting to summarize the military's activities for 2024 and set priorities for the coming year.
According to Syrski, since the beginning of 2024, the total losses of the occupiers have already exceeded 421,000 killed and wounded.
The Commander-in-Chief also emphasized that the supply of drones to the army has increased 19-fold.
Ukraine received its first batch of liquefied natural gas from the USA as part of European efforts aimed at completely disconnecting from Russian fossil fuels.
Europe imports about 40% of its LNG from the USA, but Ukraine had never purchased it directly before.
Ukraine introduced a new national holiday — the Day of Interethnic Harmony and Cultural Diversity. It will be celebrated annually on May 21.
The holiday was established, among other things, to “promote the free development of the cultural diversity of indigenous peoples and national minorities of Ukraine.”