Russia-Ukraine war live: reports of fire after Ukrainian drone hits Volgograd oil refinery | Ukraine

For a president in wartime, the only political threat greater than a popular general could well be a popular general who has been unceremoniously fired.

That appears to be a risk Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is ready to take, having failed to persuade Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi to resign as commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. While some Ukrainian politicians urged a reconciliation between the two men and said that was still possible, rumours of the general’s imminent dismissal continued to circulate in Kyiv on Wednesday.

While Zelenskiy is undisputedly the face of Ukraine abroad, Zaluzhnyi rivals the president’s popularity at home. His square bulldog features are on countless posters and internet memes across Ukraine including one showing him manhandling Vladimir Putin before an international court in The Hague. It is that rival popularity that is at the heart of the current crisis, opposition MP and Zaluzhnyi ally Oleksii Goncharenko said.

“It’s about the personal relationships between them. I don’t think it’s about the conduct of the war,” Goncharenko said. “Zelenskiy has been, don’t forget, an actor, and like he wants to be the only star in the show. And they are both emotionally exhausted after the past two years.”

We reported earlier this week that Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, had refused to resign after being asked to by Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Now, Reuters reports that Kyiv has informed the White House that Zelenskiy plans to sack Zaluzhnyi.

It says:

The move to oust General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who has clashed with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over military strategy and other issues, follows a Ukrainian counteroffensive last year that failed to recover significant amounts of Russian-held territory.

A source close to Zelenskiy’s office said the pair also have disagreed over a new military mobilisation drive, with the president opposing Zaluzhnyi’s proposal to call up 500,000 fresh troops.

The source, however, added that the process for relieving Zaluzhnyi of his post as the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces was on hold for the time being as officials consider who his replacement should be.

It added:

There were no details on the timeline for the plan. Right now, both sides (the president and the general) have taken a pause in determining what the future will look like, and for now the status quo will remain until further notice.

Welcome to today’s live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Here’s an overview of the latest developments:

• Fire has broken out at an oil refinery in Volgograd inside Russia, according to the Ukrainian state news outlet Ukrinform. It cited a Russian Telegram channel as saying Ukrainian UAVs hit the Lukoil refinery. Other reports of the attack were circulating online. Volgograd lies about 350km from the Ukrainian border.

• Ukraine’s air force said Russia attacked overnight with 14 Shahed drones from the directions of Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russia and Chauda in Crimea, as well as two KH-59 guided air missiles from the Belgorod region in Russia. “The enemy directed a significant part of the Shaheds at the energy infrastructure facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Mobile fire groups of the air force and the defence forces of Ukraine destroyed nine enemy UAVs in the Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr regions.”

• France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has confirmed two French aid workers were killed in a Russian strike in Ukraine, condemning the attack as “outrageous”. In Paris, the prosecutors’ anti-terrorist office announced on Friday that it had opened a war crimes investigation. Aid workers are non-combatants under international law.

• Ukrainian officials said the men died in a drone attack in Beryslav, southern Ukraine. “The brave French aid workers assisted people and we will always be grateful for their humanity,” said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “My condolences go out to their loved ones.”

• Zelenskiy has welcomed the arrival of two new air defence systems that he said could “shoot down anything”, though he could give no details. Separately, US under-secretary of state Victoria Nuland said in Kyiv this week that a new “small-diameter” bomb able to hit targets at greater distances would soon arrive.

• Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andrii Yusov said Russia continued to refuse to hand over the bodies of prisoners of war who Moscow claims were killed in the downing of a Russian military transport plane. Russia has produced no proof that PoWs were onboard.

• The Ukrainian general staff said its forces had repelled 19 attacks around Avdiivka in the Donetsk region and a further 10 in nearby areas.

• The top UN court, the international court of justice (ICJ), has confirmed its jurisdiction to rule in most parts of a case brought by Ukraine over Russia’s 2022 invasion.

• US Senate negotiators have reached a deal on a proposal to overhaul the asylum system at the US border with Mexico. It clears the way for Democratic and Republican Senate leaders to begin the difficult task of convincing Congress to pass a national security package that will include tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine and immigration enforcement, as well as funding for Israel and other American allies.

• Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, announced he had suspended Toomas Nakhkur, who led the defence ministry’s department for technical policy and weapons development, while authorities investigate suspected corruption in the procurement of weapons.