A Ukrainian MP from Volodymyr Zelensky's party and other officials have been arrested after the country's anti-corruption agencies uncovered what they called a large-scale bribery scheme in the purchase of drones and electronic warfare systems.
Ukraine's anti-graft investigators and prosecutors, NABU and SAPO, exposed large-scale corruption in the procurement of UAVs and electronic warfare equipment.
Four people have been detained under Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.
Among those caught taking bribes were an active Ukrainian politician, heads of district and city military civil administrations and servicemen of the National Guard, authorities said.
The scheme involved state contracts for drones at inflated prices and up to 30% of the fees were returned the suspects as illegal profits.
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President Zelensky thanked the anti-corruption agencies for their work.
"This is absolutely immoral. There must be full and fair accountability for this," he said.
A statement from the anti-corruption agencies said the operation was only made possible by a law signed by Mr Zelensky this week that removed a number of barriers to their work.
Fire at oil depot in Russia
An overnight Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at an oil depot in Sochi, with more than 120 firefighters deployed to extinguish the blaze, Russian authorities have said.
The Ukrainian drone attack caused two oil tanks to catch fire at an oil depot in Sochi in southern Russia but the blazes were later extinguished, local authorities said.
The Russian resort hosted the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, around 400km from the Ukrainian border.
Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of the surrounding Krasnodar region, said more than 120 firefighters were deployed.
Ukraine has regularly hit Russian oil and gas infrastructure in response to attacks on its own territory since Russia began its offensive in February 2022.
The Russian defence ministry said its air defence units destroyed 93 Ukrainian drones overnight, including one over the Krasnodar region and 60 over the waters of the Black Sea.
"Sochi suffered a drone attack by the Kyiv regime last night," Mr Kondratiev said on Telegram earlier.
He said the drone wreckage hit an "oil tank, which caused a fire".
Sochi's mayor, Andrei Proshunin had said there were no victims.
Images, broadcast by Russian media but whose authenticity AFP could not verify, showed flames and a thick plumes of black smoke rising from the site.
Air traffic was briefly suspended at Sochi airport but resumed shortly afterward, Russia's air transport regulator Rosaviatsia said.
Ukraine authorities had not commented on the fire.
Air strikes on Sochi are relatively rare compared to some other Russian cities.
However, Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people there late last month, according to local authorities.
The governor of Voronezh region in southern Russia said four people were injured in a Ukrainian drone strike last night that caused several fires.
Ukraine has said it will intensify its air strikes against Russia in response to an increase in Russian attacks on its territory in recent weeks, which have killed dozens of civilians.
The Russian defence ministry said meanwhile that three Ukrainian drones had been intercepted in the Leningrad region, which includes the Baltic seaport of Saint Petersburg.
Overnight strikes by Russia inside Ukraine's south and north also left several people injured, authorities said.One missile wounded seven people in a residential district of Mykolaiv, a city near the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
Three other people were injured in the northeastern Kharkiv region, she added, while local authorities also reported injuries in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the south.
"The Russians continue to wage war not against Ukrainian forces, but against Ukrainian civilians," Svyrydenko said.
Last week, US President Donald Trump gave his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a ten-day ultimatum, until next Friday, to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The air strikes and fighting have not abated, however, and the Kremlin has rejected the idea of a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine, which it sees as a gift to Kyiv's troops.
