Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised interview published on his Telegram channel on Sunday that he would ask parliament next week to increase sentences for those found guilty of corruption during the war.
"I have set a task for the legislature and Ukrainian lawmakers will be offered my proposals to equate corruption with high treason in war," he said, according to Reuters.
"I think the parliament will get it in the next week and then the ball is in the parliament's court," he added.
Zelensky, who says ending corruption is key to defeating Russia, also hopes that fighting corruption will make it easier for partners to support the billions of dollars in rebuilding efforts.
Ukraine ranks 116th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index.
"We are fast approaching the point where it will be us or them," Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on the Telegram app on Sunday. External and internal factors have meant that the country's survival has come to depend on Ukraine's ability to "really destroy the corrupt as a social group," she said.
Zelenski said that those found guilty must face justice. “But this is not a firing squad. This is not Stalinism," he said. "If there is evidence, the person must be behind bars.
Russian authorities announced today that they had sent a fighter jet to deter a US Air Force reconnaissance drone from crossing its borders over the Black Sea.
"While the Russian SU-30 fighter was approaching, a foreign reconnaissance drone made a U-turn from the state border of Russia," the Russian Ministry of Defense said, Reuters reported on its website.
The Russian news agency TASS states that the Reaper drone did not cross the Russian state border.
A ship carrying steel products to Africa has left the Ukrainian port of Odessa through a temporary Black Sea corridor, the second ship to do so since Russia last month pulled out of a U.N.-brokered deal that allowed safe grain exports, a senior Ukrainian government official said. on Sunday, reports Reuters.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the Liberian-flagged ship PRIMUS had begun sailing through a temporary corridor set up for civilian vessels, confirming a report by a Ukrainian lawmaker on Saturday.
"The second vessel blocked due to the war has left the port of Odessa and is now sailing through the temporary corridor," Kubrakov announced on the social platform X.
Kubrakov said the ship had been in port since February 20, 2022, shortly before the Russian invasion, and was carrying steel products to Africa.
Three seaports in Odesa delivered tens of millions of tons of grain under a one-year contract brokered by the UN.
Russia has threatened to treat all ships as potential military targets after withdrawing from the deal last month.
In response, Ukraine announced a "humanitarian corridor" hugging the western coast of the Black Sea near Romania and Bulgaria.
A Hong Kong-flagged container ship has been stuck in Odessa port since the invasion earlier this month without being fired upon
The governor of the Kyiv region, Ruslan Kravchenko, said that two people were wounded and 10 buildings were damaged in the fall of rocket debris in an area of the region, Reuters reports.
"Thanks to the professional work of the air defense forces, there was no impact on critical or residential infrastructure," he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry announced today on the Telegram messaging channel that its forces shot down two drones overnight in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, which border Ukraine.
"During the night and morning of August 27, the regime in Kyiv attempted to carry out terrorist attacks using fixed-wing drones against targets in the Russian Federation," the ministry announced.
Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovoit posted on his Telegram channel pictures showing the damage caused by a drone to an apartment block in the city of Kursk, with broken windows.
Drone attacks on Russian targets, particularly in Crimea – annexed by Moscow in 2014 – and in regions bordering Ukraine, have become an almost daily occurrence since two drones were destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. The attacks have disrupted flights in and out of Moscow in recent weeks.
Ukraine rarely claims direct responsibility for such drone strikes, but says the destruction of Russian military infrastructure is helping a counteroffensive launched by Kiev in June.
Russia launched an air attack on Kiev and other parts of Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian army announced today, and the air defense systems destroyed four missiles that were moving towards the capital, Reuters reports.
According to the Ukrainian army, eight rockets were detected, but there were no immediate reports of attacks, adding that the other targets were "probably fake".
The Air Force also said five Russian strategic bombers took part in the attack.
All of Ukraine was under an air strike warning for about three hours early Sunday before the warning was lifted around 6 a.m., according to Ukrainian air force data.
"Air defense forces destroyed enemy targets that were moving in the direction of Kyiv," Sergei Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.
The attack involved cruise missiles, he said. There is currently no information on the scale of the attack, possible damage or casualties.
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