KYIV, Ukraine, Feb 11, (AP): Russian forces launched 45 drones over Ukraine Sunday in a five-and-a-half-hour barrage, officials said, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued the reshuffle of his war cabinet as the war enters its third year.
In a statement, the Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 40 of the Iranian-made Shahed drones over nine different regions, including on the outskirts of the country’s capital, Kyiv.
The five-and-a-half-hour attack targeted agricultural facilities and coastal infrastructure, officials for Ukraine’s southern defense forces wrote on Telegram. They said that a strike in the Mykolaiv region had injured one person, sparking a fire and damaging nearby residential buildings.
Another person was injured in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region when a blaze broke out due to falling debris from a destroyed drone, said the head of the region’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak.
The strikes come as Zelenskyy continues his shakeup of military commanders in a bid to maintain momentum against attacking Russian forces.
Kyiv announced Sunday that former deputy defense minister Lt Gen Alexander Pavlyuk would become the new commander of Ukraine’s ground forces. The post was previously held by Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who was named Thursday as the replacement for Ukraine’s outgoing military chief, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
New presidential decrees also named Yurii Sodol, the former head of Ukraine’s marine corps, as the new commander of Ukraine’s combined forces; Brig Gen Ihor Skibiuk as commander of Ukraine’s air assault forces; and Maj Gen Ihor Plahuta as commander of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces.