The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it was monitoring the situation around Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's top military commander, after Western and Ukrainian media outlets said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was trying to oust Zaluzhny.
The media reports, attributed to unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter, said that Zelenskiy in a meeting on Monday had offered Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, a new role but that the general had refused.
Commenting on the situation around Zaluzhny, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
"Of course we are following this. There are still a lot of questions. (But) one thing remains obvious - the Kyiv regime has a lot of problems, things are not going well there," said Peskov.
"It is obvious that the failed (summer) counter-offensive and the problems on the front are leading to growing contradictions among the representatives of this Kyiv regime. These contradictions will grow as the special military operation (by Russia) continues to be successful."