At least one person was killed and 39 were injured in Russian strikes on the Ukrainian cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv, Ukrainian authorities said tonight, quoted by Agence France-Presse.
"Massive drone attack on Dnipro (. . .) so far we know of one death", said the regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, on the "Telegram" messaging app.
The mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, also reported one death in the "massive attack".
Dnipropetrovsk region, which has long remained untouched by military action compared to eastern Ukraine, has recently come under fire from Russian forces trying to penetrate the area to the first time since they invaded Ukrainian territory more than three years ago, notes Agence France-Presse.
Kharkov Mayor Igor Terekhov reported 39 wounded after saying that 16 strikes had been carried out on his city.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) announced yesterday that it had arrested defense officials accused of being involved in the supply of tens of thousands of defective shells after the Russian invasion of the country, Agence France-Presse reported.
Among those detained is the director of a plant in the Dnipropetrovsk region, his deputy, a former head of a department at the Defense Ministry and a military inspector.
"The defendants used poor-quality materials and performed poor-quality work on the production of shells, as a result of which they were defective," said a statement from SSU.
According to the security service, the goal was fraud by reducing production costs in order to make a greater profit from public procurement, with the complicity of military officials who "turned a blind eye to the batch of defective ammunition and entered false information into the documents".
Those detained in the case are accused of "obstructing the activities of the armed forces" and are threatened with 15 years in prison.
The scandal erupted late last year when soldiers began complaining about the shells and this was reflected in the media space.
Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, several cases of corruption have been revealed in the armed forces and the Ministry of Defense.
They were related to the misuse of funds to order artillery shells, daily rations, uniforms and body armor for soldiers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his traditional evening address that the first step towards peace in Ukraine is for Russia to agree to an unconditional ceasefire, Reuters reported.
"They must take clear steps towards ending the war and we insist that the first step be an unconditional and complete ceasefire. Russia must do this," Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian leader also said that Ukraine was preparing for more discussions with the United States, aimed at putting pressure on Moscow to participate in talks.
"We are choosing the pressure points in Russia that will most strongly encourage Moscow to engage in diplomacy," the Ukrainian president noted.
Volodymyr Zelensky criticized yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal for a three-day ceasefire from May 8 to 10, to mark the celebrations of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The Ukrainian president said that there was no need to wait until May 8 for a ceasefire.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier today that Ukraine had not responded to Putin's proposal for direct peace talks and that it was unclear whether Kiev would join the initiative for a three-day ceasefire.