Upgrade debian from 8 to 9, issue with systemd

I was trying to upgrade a droplet from debian 8 to 9, and i ran into a load of issues with systemd like

 Failed to start System Logging Service.
Feb 20 21:18:07 xxx-s-2vcpu-4gb-ams2-01 systemd[1]: rsyslog.service: Unit entered failed state.
Feb 20 21:18:07 xxx-s-2vcpu-4gb-ams2-01 systemd[1]: rsyslog.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

and because of it

dpkg: error processing package rsyslog (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ssh:
 ssh depends on openssh-server (>= 1:7.4p1-10+deb9u2); however:
  Package openssh-server is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package ssh (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 openssh-server
 redis-server
 rsyslog
 ssh
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)```


is there smth i can do ?