Yesterday, EIR reported that the head of the Sumy Oblast State Administration, Volodymyr Artiukh, was accused by the Ukrainian Mayor of Konotop (within the Sumy Oblast) Artem Semenikhin, of recklessly organizing a gathering of Ukrainian soldiers from the 117th Brigade for an award ceremony in the center of Sumy. This allowed Russia an easy military target to take out. This is coherent with the announcement, also yesterday, of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the firing of their two missiles. All of Kiev’s media, along with those of the West, made no mention of any Ukrainian military gathering, preferring to accuse Moscow of targeting civilians. Semenikhin also called for Artiukh to be fired.
Today, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the dismissal of Artiukh. They did not mention anything about his organization of the awards ceremony. However, Artiukh, without saying who had initiated the event, did admit that such an event took place on April 13. The dismissal was announced on Telegram by the government representative in the parliament, Taras Melnychuk.
