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Ukraine sacked two senior cyber defence officials on Monday, a government official said, as prosecutors announced a probe into alleged embezzlement in the government’s cybersecurity agency.
Ukraine fires cyber defence chief and deputy
Dozens of Ukrainian officials have been sacked since Russia’s invasion, as President Volodymyr Zelensky seeks to reassure Western allies sending wartime aid.
Yury Shchygol, head of the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine, and his deputy Victor Zhora were both dismissed on Monday, cabinet official Taras Melnychuk said.
He did not give a reason for the dismissals, but anti-corruption officials later said they were investigating the misappropriation of over $1.7 million worth of government funds during Shchygol’s time in office.
From 2020 to 2022, “the owner of a group of companies, in collusion with the management of the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine, developed a scheme to misappropriate budget funds allocated for the purchase of hardware and software,” Kyiv’s anti-graft bureau said.
The group of companies, which investigators did not name, then claimed to buy software from a foreign manufacturer for 62 million hryvnias ($1.7 million) more than its actual value and pocketed the difference, it said.
Six people are currently listed as suspects in the case, it said.
Ukraine has been fighting an uphill battle against systemic corruption, one of the reforms required by the West for membership to institutions like the European Union.
Prosecutors announced earlier this month that two senior defence officials were suspects in a large-scale fraud case involving the purchase of military uniforms from a Turkish firm.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has met Fox Corp CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, in the Ukrainian capital in what Kyiv said was a “very important signal” of support.
“The Head of State (Zelenskiy) thanked Lachlan Murdoch for his visit and emphasised that it is a very important signal of support at the time when the world’s attention is blurred by other events,” the president’s office wrote.
Ukraine sacked two senior cyber defence officials on Monday, a government official said, as prosecutors announced a probe into alleged embezzlement in the government’s cybersecurity agency.
US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in an unannounced visit to Kyiv, and said that American support to Ukraine would continue “for the long haul”, the Associated Press reported. Zelenskiy said Austin’s visit was
“a very important signal for Ukraine”
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“We count on your support,”
he added, thanking Congress as well as the American people for their backing.
- nnounced $100m in new military aid to Ukraine during his visit.
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The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, announced $100m in new military aid to Ukraine during his unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday, Reuters reports.
The US has provided more than $44bn in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
A joint Ukraine-US military industry conference in Washington, due to take place on 6 and 7 December, is intended to boost Ukraine’s domestic arms production as the war drags towards the two-year mark.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said that his talks with the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, included discussion on “battlefield developments”, the Black Sea and Ukraine’s export corridor.
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NATO is examining a more permanent ramp up of troop numbers in the western Balkans to keep tensions in the region under control, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.
“We are now reviewing whether we should have a more permanent increase to ensure that this doesn’t spiral out of control and creates a new violent conflict in Kosovo or the wider region,” he told reporters on a visit to Kosovo.
After fresh violence between ethnic groups in Kosovo in September, NATO had called in reserve forces.
NATO’s regional KFOR mission, which has been in operation since 1999, comprises over 4,500 troops from 27 countries.
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch meets Zelenskiy in Kyiv
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has met Fox Corp CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, in the Ukrainian capital in what Kyiv said was a “very important signal” of support at a time when global media attention has shifted from the war in Ukraine.
Media titan Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son – who was recently announced as chairman of both Fox Corp and News Corp – is a leading figure in media with a US Republican-leaning audience.
“The Head of State (Zelenskiy) thanked Lachlan Murdoch for his visit and emphasised that it is a very important signal of support at the time when the world’s attention is blurred by other events,” the president’s office wrote on its website.
His remark appeared to be a reference to Israel’s war in Gaza, which has dominated headlines for more than a month, and significantly diverted global media attention from the war in Ukraine, which is nearing the 21-month mark this week.
Zelenskiy said it was vital to keep the world’s attention focused on the war in Ukraine.
“For us, for our warriors, this is not a movie. These are our lives. This is daily hard work. And it will not be over as quickly as we would like, but we have no right to give up and we will not,” he was quoted as saying by his office.
Zelenskiy said Fox News journalist Benjamin Hall, who was badly injured covering the war in Ukraine last year, and The Sun journalist Jerome Starkey were also invited to the meeting with Murdoch, Reuters reports.
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