To fight against corruption, Volodymyr Zelensky cleans up. He announced on Friday the dismissal of all regional officials responsible for military recruitment. Meanwhile, Russia on Friday claimed to have made progress in northeastern Ukraine as it continues its military operations in the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Friday the dismissal of all regional officials responsible for military recruitment to uproot a system of corruption that notably allows conscripts to escape the army.

“Illegal enrichment, legalization of illegally obtained funds, illicit profits, illegal transportation across the border of conscripts. Our solution: we fire all military commissars,” Zelensky announced on Telegram, after an anti-corruption investigation.

The Russian army said on Friday that it had again “improved” its positions in northeastern Ukraine, where the offensive by Moscow troops prompted the authorities to evacuate civilians the day before. “In the direction of Kupyansk, the assault units of the ‘Western’ combat groups […] continued their offensive operations on a broad front and improved the tactical situation,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report. .

A total of 385 Ukrainian children “deported” to Russia have so far been picked up by their families, according to a count confirmed on Friday by the Austrian association SOS Children’s Villages, which participates in repatriations. “SOS Children’s Villages supports parents by sometimes making financial resources available or by helping them plan their itinerary,” spokeswoman Anna Radl told AFP.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the war crime of “illegal deportation” of children. According to official figures from kyiv, more than 19,000 of them would be affected.

The Russian army said on Friday it struck “foreign mercenaries” in Zaporizhia, the day after a strike on a hotel in the southern Ukrainian city killed at least one person and injured 14.

“In the area of ??the city of Zaporizhia, a place of temporary deployment of foreign mercenaries was hit,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

The Russian army announced on Friday that it had destroyed a Ukrainian drone in western Moscow, against the backdrop of an increase in such attacks targeting the Russian capital.

“The drone was neutralized by electronic warfare means and crashed in a forest area west of Moscow,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram, blaming “the Kiev regime.” The mayor of Moscow had, for his part, specified earlier that the aircraft had crashed “without causing significant damage”.

An eight-year-old child was killed Friday in a Russian hypersonic missile attack on the Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine, a part of the country hundreds of kilometers from the front.

“On August 11 at around 11 a.m., the Russian army fired missiles at infrastructure in the Ivano-Frankivsk region,” the prosecutor general’s office said on Telegram. According to the same source, one of the missiles fell on a house in which there was a family with three children.

“An eight-year-old boy died as a result of the shelling,” prosecutors said, saying rescuers are trying to determine if there are other victims.