Zelensky refers to a major shake-up in the Ukrainian government

President Volodymyr Zelensky said a broad overhaul of Ukraine's military and civilian leadership was needed to restart the country's war effort, signaling that a major shake-up of his government was imminent.

Mr. Zelensky's comments in a broadcast broadcast on Sunday evening indicated that his plans went beyond replacing the top military commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhny. Tensions between the military and civilian leadership, which have been building for months, appeared to reach a breaking point last week when Mr. Zelensky called the general into a meeting to tell him he was being fired, according to Ukrainian officials who were familiar with the discussion. .

However, the decision was shelved, creating a sense of uncertainty at the top of the government at a precarious moment in the war.

“A reset, a new beginning is necessary,” Mr Zelensky told Italian media Rai news in the Sunday evening broadcast. “I have something serious in mind that is not about one person, but about the direction of the country's leadership.”

Exhausted Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold off renewed Russian offensives on the front, with the epicenter of the fighting around the battered city of Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region.

According to Ukrainian soldiers in the area, Russian soldiers, taking advantage of heavy cloud cover to evade detection by Ukrainian surveillance drones, managed to penetrate the northern outskirts of the city.

They increasingly threaten a vital supply line and Ukraine's control over the city. The fall of Avdiivka would mark the most significant victory for Russian forces since they captured Bakhmut in May, and would open new lines of attack in the Kremlin's bid to conquer the entire eastern Donbas region.

It could also free up resources for another Russian attack several hundred kilometers north, in the Kharkov region.

Moscow has amassed more than 40,000 troops and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles near Kupiansk, part of what Ukrainian military commanders said is an intensifying effort to retake territory in Kharkiv that Russian forces lost more than a year ago during a Ukrainian offensive.

Ukraine's defenses have been undermined by the suspension of vital US military aid, with Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives blocking repeated attempts to provide new funding.

The lack of aid has not only resulted in a critical shortage of artillery and other weapons, but has made planning for the future extremely difficult.

While Ukrainian lawmakers are engaged in a heated debate over a new one mobilization bill that could lead to the deployment of as many as 500,000 troops, the discussion is complicated by the fact that Ukrainian leaders do not know what resources will be available to train and equip those troops.

Even before the standoff in Washington, newly pledged aid to Ukraine had fallen by nearly 90 percent between August and October compared to the same period in 2022, the report said. Kiel Institute for the World Economya German research institute.

As Senate Republicans and Democrats on Sunday unveiled a $118.3 billion bill that tied $60 billion in security aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel and U.S. border security reforms, Chairman Mike Johnson, who had pushed for the divergent connecting issues, that the bill would be “dead on arrival” in the Republican-controlled House.

Former President Donald J. Trump is campaigning against the deal and pressuring his supporters in Congress to block it.

Mr. Biden urged lawmakers on Sunday to pass the legislation, saying that “if we don't stop Putin's thirst for power and control in Ukraine, it will go beyond Ukraine, and the costs to America will rise.”

Ukraine's armed forces may be at their weakest point since the summer of 2022. Mr. Zelensky's frustrations with Mr. Zaluzhny have grown over the past year as fighting has descended into bloody, static trench warfare. But Mr. Zelensky has moved cautiously, well aware of the risks of replacing the popular military commander.

Mr. Zaluzhny is highly regarded by rank-and-file soldiers and considered a hero by many in the country for orchestrating Ukraine's defense during the first chaotic months of the war, Europe's biggest land conflict in decades.

His resignation could fuel concerns about the instability of Kiev's wartime leadership and would almost certainly be used by Russian propagandists to portray Mr. Zelensky as an undemocratic tyrant.

“When we talk about this, I mean a replacement of a series of state leaders, not just in a single sector like the military,” Mr Zelensky said on air on Sunday, when asked about reports that he was planning to replace General Zaluzhny . . “If we want to win, we must all move in the same direction, convinced of victory.”

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said the White House had been consulted about possible changes in Ukrainian leadership and would have no influence on personnel decisions.

“It is the sovereign right of Ukraine and the right of the President of Ukraine to make his personnel decisions.” he said on CBS's Face the Nation. “We have been clear: we are simply not going to get involved in that specific decision. We have indicated this directly to the Ukrainians.”