General Valery Zaluzhny, Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army
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Western media reported that President Zelensky asked General Zaluzhny to take on a new role at a meeting on January 29, but the general refused. Later, there was information that Mr. Zelensky was looking to remove Mr. Zaluzhny.
After the rumor spread quickly on social media, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry responded on January 30: "That is untrue news," when mentioning that the general could have been dismissed.
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It is not yet clear what the situation is now. It is reported that Mr Zelensky could still remove and replace Mr Zaluzhny, a process that would require the support of Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.
The likely candidate to replace General Zaluzhny as Chief of the General Staff is General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency.
Commenting on the above developments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia is closely following this news. "There are still many questions, but one thing is very clear: the Kyiv regime has many problems," according to Mr. Peskov.
The Kremlin spokesman said the reason behind the incident could stem from the failure of the counter-offensive campaign conducted by Ukraine, while Russia's special military operation continued to be victorious.
On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country's forces had broken through the enemy's defense line and entered the outskirts of the town of Avdiivka, which has been the scene of fierce fighting between Russia and Ukraine for months.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian military intelligence sources revealed that Kyiv had launched a drone attack on an oil storage facility deep inside Russian territory, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, according to AFP. Russia has not commented on this information.
Investigation results into the plane crash
Prisoners of war on the day of their return to Ukraine on January 31.
Speaking on Russian television on January 31, President Putin specifically named the type of weapon believed to have caused the crash of a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war plane in the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border on January 24.
"The plane carrying prisoners was shot down, and the results show that it was by an American Patriot system. This was confirmed through a forensic investigation," TASS quoted President Putin as saying.
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According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the plane departed from Chkalovsky airport to Belgorod and carried Ukrainian prisoners of war to prepare for the exchange with Kyiv.
Moscow announced that all 74 people on board the plane were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were about to be released to Kyiv.
Kyiv and Washington have not yet officially responded to the information released by Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov said the investigation is still ongoing.
After the plane crash, Russia and Ukraine also conducted a prisoner transfer on January 31, with more than 400 people.
Russia received 195 soldiers, while President Zelensky said 207 people, both military and civilians, had returned home, according to AFP.
Mr. Josep Borrell, head of EU foreign policy
European Union breaks promise to Ukraine
In a worrying development, the European Union (EU) admitted it could only provide more than half of the 1 million artillery shells it promised to Ukraine a year ago.
That was the information shared by Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, to the press. Specifically, Brussels can only send Kyiv 524,000 howitzers by the end of the one-year transition period set by the EU, which ends in March this year.
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The information was released as Ukraine continues to lose firepower to Russia after nearly two years of conflict, according to AFP.
Mr. Borrell said that the EU could fulfill the above promise by the end of 2024 because the bloc's military industry is stepping up production activities.
With aid from the US cut off, Brussels has asked member states to come up with specific figures for Ukraine this year, and it is expected that at least 21 billion euros will be transferred by the EU to Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, the largest European aid donor to Ukraine, is calling on other countries to continue to increase support for the Kyiv government in the coming time.
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