President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired the head of Ukraine's air force a day after it emerged that a recently delivered F-16 fighter jet crashed earlier this week, killing the pilot.
“I have decided to replace the commander of the air force… I am forever grateful to all military pilots,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Friday night, without giving a reason for Mykola Oleschuk's dismissal.
But Zelenskiy said there was a need to “protect” the lives of those defending the country, and suggested the firings were probably linked to the F-16 crash that killed Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Mess.
The arrival of the F-16s donated by European countries was delayed by a lengthy training program required before pilots and ground crew could fly the aircraft.
Mariana Bezgura, a member of parliament's defence committee, had claimed the plane was shot down by friendly fire. Reuters quoted US officials as saying the plane did not appear to have been hit by Russian fire and that the crash may have been due to mechanical failure or pilot error.
The crash was yet another unwelcome piece of news this week that has sparked public criticism of Ukrainian military leadership and President Zelenskiy, as Russia continues its rapid advance towards Ukraine's main eastern city of Pokrovsk and a bold incursion into the Russian-held Kursk region.
Russian forces have been trying for months to capture Pokrovsk, a strategically important mining town with a pre-war population of about 60,000, but their advance has gained considerable momentum in recent weeks.
Deep State, a Ukrainian group close to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry that tracks activity on the front line, reported that Russian troops were within 10 kilometers (six miles) on Friday of the outskirts of Pokrovsk, where local authorities had ordered a mass evacuation.
Russian pro-war military bloggers also reported on Friday that troops had entered the town of Seridove, south of Pokrovsk.
As President Vladimir Putin's troops advanced, Russian forces shelled a home and a children's playground in the city of Kharkiv, killing at least five people, including a child, and wounding 40, the city's mayor said.
Videos circulating on social media showed flames shooting from a high-rise building that authorities said was caused by a glide bomb. Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, has been subjected to relentless shelling since the start of the Russian invasion.
Pokrovsk lies at the junction of several major roads, facilitating supplies for Ukrainian forces along a wide front, and its fall could pave the way for further Russian advances in the Donetsk region.
“The situation is very bad and has deteriorated quickly,” said a commander of a unit based near Pokrovsk, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. “Time will tell whether we should have sent troops to Kursk instead of defending the east, but for now we are suffering.”
Kiev's surprise invasion of Russia's Kursk region earlier this month was a huge morale booster at home and raised hopes that the brazen attack might prompt Moscow to redeploy troops from the eastern front.
But more than three weeks after the operation began, the Ukrainian military acknowledges that Russia has yet to send troops into eastern Ukraine to retake territory from its borders, while Kiev's advance in the Kursk region has slowed significantly.
Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Shirsky, said last week that Moscow had shifted some troops out of occupied southern Ukraine and redeployed 30,000 troops to retake territory in the Kursk region.
Importantly, Russia also said it was stepping up efforts in the Pokrovsk region at the same time.
Ukraine still holds large parts of Russian territory, and signs of the invasion are visible everywhere in Sumy, the Ukrainian city closest to the operational area, with an increased military presence in the city and frequent sightings of military equipment heading towards Russia.
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Russian forces attacked Sumy on Friday, killing two women and wounding eight, regional authorities said. They said guided bombs were used to attack the factory. Attacks regularly take place in areas near the border. Regional authorities urged residents of these areas to evacuate as soon as possible. More than 20,000 people have already evacuated the border area.
A popular Ukrainian commentator and army reserve officer who goes by the online handle “Tatarigami” said the breakthrough on the front line in the Donetsk region was “exacerbated” by the Kursk Offensive, which “diverted experienced and motivated brigades, lost stabilizing reserves and allowed the rapid advance of Russian forces.”
He also accused Ukrainian military leaders of downplaying the severity of the situation: “Unfortunately, military leaders are still being told that the 'situation is under control' – but it is far from being under control… Lies, lies, lies,” he tweeted.
President Zelenskyy this week denied accusations that the redeployment of experienced forces to Kursk had weakened Ukraine's position in Pokrovsk. At a press conference on Tuesday, he said the situation there was “extremely difficult” but argued that the incursion had actually slowed Russian forces' advance towards the city.
However, open source data, military analysts close to the Ukrainian military, and pro-Russian bloggers paint a different picture, showing the situation on the front deteriorating since August 6, when Ukrainian forces first entered Kursk.
Even before the decision to send troops to Kursk, Ukraine had been struggling in the east for months, leaving its forces outnumbered, exhausted and struggling to receive belated Western aid.
Some Ukrainian soldiers say the Kursk offensive is not the cause of the collapse of the front line, instead they blame the difficulties on fatigue among soldiers, some of whom have been fighting since the offensive began more than two years ago.
“At the moment it seems that our front line in Donbas has collapsed,” Roman Ponomarenko, a respected brigade commander in the Azov Brigade, wrote in Telegram.
“Ukrainian defenses are in disarray, soldiers are tired and weakened, morale in many units is low… and it's not because of the Ukrainian military's operations in Kursk.”
Ukraine has since been able to partially replenish its forces thanks to the government's strict new conscription laws, which lowered the conscription age from 27 to 25. But newly mobilized troops appear to be sent to the front with only limited training.
“Resupply is barely trained and serves no purpose, but rather complicates the combat activities of the troops,” Ponomarenko wrote.
In an interview with The Associated Press last week, a battalion commander for the Ukrainian 47th Brigade said some of the newly mobilized soldiers “don't want to fire a shot. They see the enemy in a trench taking a firing position and they don't fire. That's why our soldiers are losing their lives.”
