Kyiv on Tuesday announced the dismissal of a dozen top officials in its biggest political shakeup following the country's first major corruption scandal linked to the Russian invasion, reports BSS.
Ukraine has long suffered endemic corruption, but Moscow's nearly year-long full-scale war has overshadowed government efforts to stamp out graft.
Western allies have allocated billions of dollars in financial and military aid to Kyiv to counter Russian troops, often preconditioning the support on anti-corruption reforms.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Tuesday that the clean-up was necessary and that additional measures would be taken.
"It is fair, it is needed for our defence, and it helps our rapprochement with European institutions," he said. "We need a strong state, and Ukraine will be just that."
Presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said Zelensky had focused on "key priorities of the state" in dismissing the officials, who include governors of regions that have seen heavy fighting and deputy cabinet ministers.
"During the war, everyone should understand their responsibility," Podolyak tweeted.
The shakeup came after a Ukrainian deputy minister of development of communities and territories, Vasyl Lozynskiy, was sacked at the weekend following his arrest on suspicion of embezzlement.
Photographs released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau showed stashes of cash seized at Lozynskiy's office.
The 36-year-old was accused of receiving a $400,000 bribe to "facilitate" the purchase of generators at inflated prices, as Ukraine struggles with electricity shortages following Russian strikes on its energy grid.
On Tuesday, key presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who has worked with Zelensky since his 2019 election, announced his resignation.
The 33-year-old posted a picture of himself holding a handwritten resignation letter, thanking the president for the "opportunity to do good deeds every day and every minute".
Tymoshenko was implicated in several scandals, including over the alleged personal use last October of an SUV donated to Ukraine for humanitarian purposes.
He was replaced by Oleksii Kuleba, the former head of Kyiv region's military administration.
Oleg Nemchinov, a senior government official, also announced the departure of five regional governors and four deputy ministers.
They include the heads of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, the northeastern Sumy region, the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as well as the region surrounding the capital Kyiv.
Nemchinov additionally announced the dismissal of two deputy ministers of development of communities and territories, and a deputy minister of social policy.
The defence ministry separately announced the resignation of deputy minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who worked on providing logistical support for the army.
It came after the ministry was accused of signing food contracts at prices two to three times higher than current rates for basic foodstuffs.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
