Ukrainian president says ‘thousands’ involved in bribery system that allows men to avoid service; drone approaching Moscow shot down, according to mayor
At a glance: what we know on day 554 of the invasion
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has decried corrupt medical exemptions that have enabled people to avoid military service, saying the system was subject to bribes and mass departures abroad.
Zelenskiy said the National Security and Defence Council had considered data showing the extent of false exemptions, bribe-taking and flight abroad since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. The investigation of dubious medical exemptions was still being conducted, he said.
At least two people were reported killed in Kyiv in what authorities described as the heaviest series of Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital for months. Air defences shot down all 28 Russian missiles and 15 out of 16 drones, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said on Wednesday.
Six Ukrainian pilots were reportedly killed when two military helicopters crashed in the eastern Donetsk region. According to the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, the two Mi-8 helicopters crashed in Kramatorsk on Tuesday. The aircraft were completely destroyed and the bodies of six dead servicemen were found.
Russian investigators are considering the possibility that the plane carrying the Wagner mercenary head Yevgeny Prigozhin was shot down on purpose, the Kremlin said on Wednesday in the first explicit acknowledgment of what most already believed to have been an assassination. “It is obvious that different versions are being considered, including … a deliberate atrocity,” the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Russia is in secret, active talks with North Korea to acquire a range of munitions and supplies, the White House has said. “Arms negotiations between Russia and the DPRK are actively advancing,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said, adding that a key focus of the talks was artillery ammunition.
Tech companies including TikTok and Twitter failed to effectively tackle Russian disinformation online during the first year of the war in Ukraine, according to a study published on Wednesday by the EU. The independent study for the EU comes after tougher rules under its Digital Services Act kicked in this month for the world’s biggest online platforms.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and his Turkish counterpart will discuss a proposal by Moscow for an alternative to the Black Sea grain deal when they meet this week, Lavrov’s ministry has said. Under the plan, Russia would send a million tonnes of grain to Turkey at a discounted price, with financial support from Qatar, to be processed in Turkey and sent to countries most in need, the foreign ministry said.
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