Office of the President: Ukraine itself will unblock the Black Sea if it receives MLRS systems
Roman Petrenko – May 22, 2022
Photo from the Militarnyi website
The President’s Office notes that Ukraine needs the American MLRS multiple launch rocket system, including for unblocking the Black Sea.
Source: Head of the Office of the President Andrii Yermak in Telegram; his adviser Mykhailo Podoliak on Twitter.
Yermak’s Quote: “We need to get high-precision missiles, drones, anti-aircraft defence systems and ammunition. We are still waiting for MLRS.”
Podoliak’s Quote: “1.6 billion people may become malnourished due to lack of food. Hundreds of millions will fall below the poverty line due to rising prices.
The Economist predicts the consequences of Russian aggression and invites the world to agree with Ukraine and Russia on international food convoys in the Black Sea.
Bargain with a country that has taken hundreds of millions of people hostage? We have a better idea: the world should agree on the transfer of MLRS systems and other necessary heavy weapons to Ukraine to unlock the Black Sea. Then we’ll do everything ourselves.”
Recall: The UN warned that the closure of ports in the Black Sea could provoke a global food disaster, which will lead to famine, mass migration and political instability in the world.
Russians prepare to resume offensive on Sloviansk – General Staff Summary
Denys Karlovskyi – May 21, 2022
MAP OF HOSTILITIES IN DONBAS. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Russian occupying forces are preparing to resume offensive operations from Izium to Sloviansk.
Source: evening summary of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for 21 May
Quote: “The occupying forces are preparing to resume their offensive on the Sloviansk front. During the day, the enemy carried out artillery shelling in the areas of Velyka Komyshuvakha and Dovhenke in Kharkiv Oblast.
On the Slobozhansk front, the enemy continues to conduct hostilities in order to hold the occupied frontiers. In order to prevent our troops from reaching the state border, they launched air strikes and fired artillery at the areas of Chornohlazivka, Prudianka, Dementiivka and Ternova.”
Details: Russian troops are also preparing for an offensive on the Lyman front.
On the Donetsk front, the enemy is trying to break through the Ukrainian troops’ line of defence and reach the administrative border of Luhansk Oblast.
Supported by aircraft and artillery, they carried out assault operations in the areas of Lypove, Vasylivka, Marinka and Novomykhailivka in Donetsk Oblast, but without success.
The Russians launched air and artillery strikes on civilian targets in Bakhmut and Vrubovka. An air strike was also launched on Mykilskyi in the Volnovakha district.
The aggressor did not carry out offensive operations on the Novopavlivsk and Zaporizhzhia fronts. Civilian infrastructure was shelled in the areas of Vremivka in Donetsk Oblast, and Olhivske, Zatyshshya, Guliaypole, Orikhiv, Novodanylivka and Kamianske in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
On the Pivdennyi Buh, Siversk, Volyn and Polissia fronts, the situation has not changed significantly.
In Chernihiv Oblast, Russian invaders fired on the settlements of Semenivka, Bleshnia and Hirsk. Missile strikes were separately launched on targets in the Poltava and Zhytomyr regions.
Ukrainian intelligence continues to record that the Russian command is carrying out covert mobilisation to rotate troops that have suffered losses during the hostilities against the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Compulsory measures to enlist men from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are also continuing.
Under the slogan of “nationalisation”, Russian invaders are looting the property of telecommunications companies in the occupied territories of the southern oblasts of Ukraine.
Background:
In its morning summary, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported the aggressor’s plans to attack Sloviansk from the east – from the side of Siversk on the border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
As of the morning of 21 May, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have killed 28,500 Russian soldiers and destroyed 1,278 tanks, 3,116 armored combat vehicles and 462 drones.
Zelenskyy says UN, Red Cross order Russia to take its ‘mountains of corpses’
Caitlin McFall – May 21, 2022
The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have directed Russian President Vladimir Putin to remove his “mountain of corpses,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday.
“They abandoned their military,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with a Ukrainian news outlet. “They were dying, but they didn’t care. Recently I was told that they are only now thinking about taking the corpses.
“When the war started…they used to pretend that there were no corpses,” he continued. “The UN and the Red Cross said – take these bags away. Mountains of corpses of their military.”
A Russian Armoured personnel carrier (APC) burns next to an unidentified soldier’s body during a fight with the Ukrainian armed forces in Kharkiv. Photo by SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Images
Moscow has long relied on its propaganda machine to fuel support for its conflict in Ukraine and Putin has refused to declare open war on Kyiv, instead calling it a “special military operation.”
Reports surfaced early in the invasion that Russia was potentially relying on a “mobile crematorium” to dispose of dead soldiers to help cover the evidence of mounting causalities.
The Pentagon has assessed that Russia is behind schedule in eastern Ukraine, where it intends to gain “full control.”
But press secretary John Kirby said Friday that the U.S. has assessed that Russian forces are still making “incremental gains” in the Donbas and a senior U.S. defense official told reporters this week the U.S. believes Moscow is making some headway in the Black Sea as well.
“The Russians are still well behind where we believe they wanted to be when they started this revitalized effort in the eastern part of the country,” Kirby said from the Pentagon. “And while they have made, and we have been very honest about this, they have made some incremental progress in the Donbas. It is incremental, it is slow, it’s uneven, and the Ukrainians continue to push back.”
UKRAINE MORALE IS ‘HUGE’ BOOST IN WAR WITH RUSSIA, NATO MILITARY CHIEFS SAY
The Ukrainian president said he signed a decree in early 2022 to add 100,000 additional troops to its fighting force by next year, but warned he is not sure that this will be enough to take on the entire might of Russia.
Western defense officials have argued Russia does not appear to have properly planned for its major offensive against Ukraine, and Zelenskyy said Saturday his nation had been bracing for an attack since September 2021 as Russia started to amass troops along its southern border.
But Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is fighting more than just Russia and has Belarus to contend with as it has backed Putin’s deadly campaign.
“We have to look at the cost of this war,” he said. “We broke the back of one of the world’s strongest armies. We have already done it. Psychologically we have done it.
“They will not stand on their feet for the next few years,” he added.
Putin is losing his grip on power and top Russian security officials think the Ukraine war is ‘lost,’ expert says
Joshua Zitser – May 21, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin seen during the Summit of Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) at the Grand Kremlin Palace on May 16, 2022.Contributor/Getty Images
Top Russian security officials think the war in Ukraine is “lost,” according to an expert.
These officials are now preparing themselves for a post-Putin Russia, said Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev.
Some of them are already looking for opportunities to take their families out of Russia, Grozev said, per Metro.
Top Russian security officials think the war in Ukraine is “lost,” suggesting that Vladimir Putin’s regime might be coming to an end, according to an expert on Russia-related security threats.
The “informed elite” within the security forces “understand that the war is lost,” said Bellingcat’s lead Russia investigator Christo Grozev in an interview with Radio Liberty, per Metro.
To have a chance of winning the war, Grozev said, the Russian president would need full mobilization but this would cause problems for him at home. Mass mobilization would lead to a “social explosion” in Russia, Grozev added, according to Metro.
There are those in Putin’s inner circle who may pressure him to use nuclear or chemical weapons, Grozev continued, but others will say “enough is enough.” These people would say “it is better not to waste another 10,000 lives of our soldiers and officers,” Grozev said, per Metro.
Western officials say Russia, facing military setbacks, is losing momentum as the war in Ukraine goes on.
Grozev said that security officials with the FSB, who know how many Russian soldiers have died, think Putin is losing his grip on power. ‘These are those parts of the security forces who know the dangers for the regime, and they themselves are now preparing their future,” he said, per Metro.
A number of officials from the FSB and GRU are preparing for a post-Putin Russia, according to the expert. “Some of them are looking for an opportunity to take their families out of Russia,” Grozev said.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File
Last week, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief told Sky News that a coup to overthrow Putin is already underway. “It is impossible to stop it,” said Major General Kyrylo Budanov.
Insider previously reported that the grievances that typically motivate a coup against a dictator are in place — a struggling economy, military setbacks, and floundering morale. However, Putin has spent decades making his regime coup-proof, an expert told Insider.
Ukraine’s stymies Russian efforts to cut off Luhansk in Bilohorivka
May 21, 2022
Siversky Donets River
Despite the fact that heavy fighting is still going on in the region, thanks to the extraordinary professionalism of the Armed Forces, this episode has already gone down in the history of war with Russia.
Deployment of forces as of May 13, 2022, one of the circles marks Bilohorivka www.understandingwar.org
A strike on a school in Bilohorivka and construction of a pontoon crossing: what the invaders were trying to achieve
Before the Russian invasion, about 1,000 people lived in the village of Bilohorivka (Sievierodonetsk district, Luhansk Oblast). However, in early May 2022, this small town gained exceptional strategic importance on military maps.
It was in this area that Russian troops tried to ford the Siverskyi Donets River, a natural barrier between the Armed Forces and the invaders in the hottest parts of the front.
A successful breakthrough and the development of the Russian army’s offensive near Bilohorivka could allow it to take control of the Lysychansk-Bakhmut route, which Luhansk Regional State Administration Chairman Serhiy Hayday calls the “road of life” — it connects the region with Ukrainian-controlled territories. In addition, such a breakthrough could increase the threat of the encirclement of some Ukrainian forces defending the settlements of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
On May 7, the Russian army resorted to “preparatory” actions, launching an airstrike on a school in Bilohorivka, where almost 90 civilians were hiding. About 60 of them are believed to have been killed in the attack.
“If [the invaders] entrench themselves, they can develop an offensive and get closer to the road, cutting off Luhansk Oblast — it will mean the loss of the single path to safety and communication with other regions,” Hayday stated in his morning report on May 9, when Moscow pompously celebrated Victory Day.
“Today is decisive. Let’s fight for the “road of life” […] Trust in the Ukrainian Armed Forces! We have everything to defeat the ogres. As they crossed the river, so will they swim back.”
Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command Handout via REUTERS
The Ukrainian army managed to realize such hopes almost literally: in the following days, Ukrainian defenders destroyed several such crossings, forcing the Russians to flee, even by swimming. At the same time, a huge amount of enemy equipment and personnel was destroyed, comparable to the staffing of one or two battalion tactical groups (BTG) of the Russian Federation.
Bilohorivka as a new Chornobaivka: what losses and how exactly the Armed Forces inflicted them on the Russians
According to journalist Yuriy Butusov, the most active phase of fighting in the Bilohorivka area took place on May 5-13, when units of the 58th Motorized Infantry, 80th Air Assault, 128th Mountain Assault, and 57th Motorized Brigades of the Armed Forces repulsed Russian troops.
With strong artillery support, the Ukrainian military managed not only to destroy the original crossing and enemy forces that were trying to form the first bridgehead but also to crush several other attempts by Russia to build pontoon bridges.
According to the New York Times, Russian commanders sent about 550 servicemen of the 74th Motor Rifle Brigade of the 41st Army to ford the Siverskyi Donets near Bilohorivka.
At least 485 of them were liquidated by Ukrainian defenders, along with more than 80 units of Russian equipment, according to the Institute for the Study of War. These are the most conservative estimates: according to Butusov, Russia has lost even more near Bilohorivka — over 100 units of military equipment.
Similar assessments were made by analyst Pavel Voylov, who meticulously summarized all available photos and videos from Bilohorivka and published an extremely detailed database of the defeat of the invaders in their attempt to ford the Siverskyi Donets.
This database contains 110 objects (equipment and engineering constructions) in Bilohorivka and its vicinity. Among them are tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, tugboats needed to construct the crossing, and other Russian military equipment, such as:
58 destroyed and sunken objects: they are marked in red on the map below (10 tanks, 31 infantry fighting vehicles, 3 airborne combat vehicles, 3 floating armored personnel carriers, 1 armored repair and evacuation vehicle, 1 landing armored personnel carrier, 2 tugboats, 1 pontoon park vehicle and 6 unknown objects);
31 possibly destroyed or damaged objects marked in khaki (2 tanks, 9 infantry fighting vehicles, 4 floating armored personnel carriers, 1 floating conveyor, 9 pontoon park vehicles, 3 pontoons on the shore and 3 unknown objects);
4 objects without any damage, displayed in white (2 tanks, 1 infantry fighting vehicle, and 1 unknown object).
“The total number of destroyed, sunk, possibly destroyed or damaged objects today [May 18] is 89 units,” Voylov says.
Of this number, some of the objects may be only damaged, but, on the other hand, there are very few photos and videos of Bilohorivka-North – only one reliably destroyed object has been identified there so far. Given that the enemy was forced to retreat to the crossing as a result of the battle, its losses there are probably uncounted.
According to sources cited by the Ukrainian military news outlet Defence Express, after the devastating defeat near Bilohorivka, remnants of the Russian 74th Motor Rifle Brigade withdrew from Ukrainian territory to the Voronezh region of the Russian Federation, due to a complete loss of combat capability.
This data suggests all three motorized infantry battalions of this brigade were defeated, and in the tank battalion of 31 vehicles, there were only five tanks capable of moving by themselves.
It is worth noting that this brigade, from the beginning of the invasion, operated near Chernihiv and Nizhyn, where it had already suffered losses, and after the Russians retreated from northern Ukraine, it was transferred to the Izyum axis.
Butusov, who visited the battlefield near Bilohorivka shortly after a successful counterattack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said that at first the enemy managed to transport several dozen units of equipment to the Ukrainian-controlled bank of the river.
The invaders tried to gain a foothold in 1 square kilometer area, “and this could be — and was — a really big problem for us,” Butusov said.
“But our troops in very difficult conditions, where the situation was constantly changing, went into battle, and the attacks of our infantry stopped the advance of the enemy on the bridgehead,” Butusov said in a video dated May 15, after returning from Bilohorivka.
“And after the infantry restrained a further offensive, our artillery precisely targeted Russian equipment, Russian reserves, Russian infantry — now everything has been driven out of our bank of the Siverskyi Donets.”
Figures indicate damaged or destroyed objects in the area of the Russian forces’ attempt to force the Siversky Donets near Bilohorivka Pavel Voylov via Facebook
The YouTube channel Ukrayinskyi Svidok (‘Ukrainian Witness’), which documents the war with Russia, also released a video of a “cemetery” of Russian equipment from the area where the enemy army tried to ford the Siverskyi Donets.
These shots were taken by one of the Ukrainian service members who took part in the hostilities.
Around the same time, Russians tried to cross a river in the Dronivka area, 12 km west of Bilohorivka, but failed there as well.
The 30th Prince Konstantyn Ostrogski Mechanized Brigade reported that Russian troops were trying to create three bridgeheads near the village of Dronivka.
“But the heroism and resilience of our infantry, artillery, and tankers of the 30th Mechanized Brigade and other units of the Armed Forces managed to stop the Russian troops and inflict heavy losses on them,” the Ukrainian military noted, releasing video footage of the act.
The clip shows the destruction of about 15 units of enemy military equipment, including three infantry fighting vehicles, two tanks, pontoons, boats, and amphibious, and engineering vehicles, according to Defence Express.
Consequences and assessments of the enemy’s defeat near Bilohorivka
As of May 20, heavy fighting continues in Luhansk Oblast. The invaders are destroying local towns and villages, and Russian forces still control one of the banks of the Siverskyi Donets. However, new attempts to ford the river near Bilohorivka have not been observed yet.
“The orcs are not fording the Siverskyi Donets yet,” said Hayday on May 17.
“(They are) scared. Foreign media reports that (Putin) is personally devising a plan for how this can be done. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are doing everything possible to prevent the Russians from crossing the river, creating a bridgehead for the offensive and cutting us off from the road of life.”
Meanwhile, the global media has noted the proficiency of the Armed Forces in preventing a Russian crossing.
The NYT says that if the reports on the nearly 500 invaders killed while fording the river are confirmed, it will be one of the biggest combat losses of the war with Russia.
The NYT points out that about 500 people were on the sunken Russian cruiser Moskva, but their fate in Russia has been kept under wraps, and the exact number of dead is still unknown.
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War in its reports noted that as a result of the defeat near Bilohorivka, the Russian army “likely lost the momentum necessary to execute a large-scale crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River.”
“The attempted river crossing showed a stunning lack of tactical sense as satellite images show (destroyed) Russian vehicles tightly bunched up at both ends of the (destroyed) bridge, clearly allowing Ukrainian artillerymen to kill hundreds and destroy scores of vehicles with concentrated strikes,” the Institute pointed out.
It also said that the defeat near Bilohorivka has provoked a barrage of criticism of the Russian military command, even among pro-Kremlin military bloggers.
Among them is Yuri Podolyaka, a Russian blogger with 2.1 million subscribers on his Telegram channel, who said in a recent video: “I kept silence for a long time. The last straw that overwhelmed my patience was the events around Bilohorivka, where due to stupidity — I stress, because of the stupidity of the Russian command — at least one battalion tactical group was burned, possibly two.”
According to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, against the background of Russian informational secrecy and propaganda efforts that obscure the real picture of developments in Ukraine, these bloggers’ comments “may fuel burgeoning doubts in Russia about Russia’s prospects in this war and the competence of Russia’s military leaders.”
Steele’s comments follow weeks of rumors about the Russian president’s health.
President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power is fading, and he has to take regular breaks for medical treatment, according to former British spy Christopher Steele.
Steele is a former MI6 operative who worked for many years in Russia, including heading up the spy agency’s Russia desk for three years.
President Vladimir Putin with Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev on a state media photo dated to May 19 2022Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Photo
He told LBC: “There’s no clear political leadership coming from Putin, who is increasingly ill, and in military terms, the structures of command and so on are not functioning as they should.”
He did not cite his sources but said he was “fairly confident” of his claims. Putin’s top spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has repeatedly denied any issues.
“What we do know is that he’s constantly accompanied around the place by a team of doctors,” said Steele. Government meetings — many of which are televised — have to be broken up into sections so that Putin can go out and receive regular treatments, Steele claimed.
“It’s certainly having a very serious impact on the governance of Russia at the moment,” he said.
Putin is unlikely to withdraw from Ukraine “because of the sort of political corner he’s painted himself into,” Steele said. He added: “It’s probably driving his wish to solidify his legacy as he sees it.”
Rumors about Putin’s health have circulated for months. On May 14, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Sky News that Putin is “very sick” and suggested that a Kremlin coup is underway.
And the rumors went into overdrive after recent television appearances revealed the president looking pained, fidgety, and puffy. They led to speculation that the president may have dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or a type of cancer.
Some tabloidspeculations have been attributed to an anonymous Telegram account named “General SVR.” It claims to be a former high-ranking Kremlin official but Insider has been unable to verify.
But in his interview with LBC, Steele gave credence to the Parkinson’s rumor, saying Putin is “probably” ill with the disease. Nonetheless, “we don’t know the exact details of what his ailment is,” Steele said.
In April, an in-depth investigation by the independent Russian outlet Proekt also found, by examining flight records, that Putin has for the last decade had a medical entourage, with up to a dozen doctors with him at any one time — including numerous visits from a thyroid cancer specialist.
Steele is the author of the Trump-Russia dossier that included obscene allegations about the former US president, including the rumored “pee tape.”
No evidence has since been found of that tape, and other headline claims have been discredited or are yet to be independently confirmed, as CNN reported.
1700 Ukrainian soldiers leave Azovstal, Zelensky opens up about heroic pilots who helped them survive for so long
May 20, 2022
A Ukrainian serviceman pictured on the ruins of Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol
8.44 p.m: Ukrainian defenders at Azovstal managed to last that long thanks to the heroic sacrifice of Ukrainian pilots, who were secretly delivering food and water to the besieged still mill, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Ukrainian media.
“Unfortunately, a very large number of our pilots died. Absolutely heroic people who knew how difficult it was to fly to Azovstal and bring them medicine, food, and water,” Zelensky said.
The President said that there were no air corridors to the Azovstal plant due to the strong Russian air defense systems in the area.
“Helicopter pilots for many weeks were flying there, knowing that 90% do not return… Imagine what these people did. They flew there to give food, water, and weapons to Azovstal defenders and took away the wounded. We lost many pilots. They are absolutely heroic, “Zelensky stressed.
7.12 p.m: Ukrainian partisans set up a Ukrainian flag over the railway station in Kherson.
“The Ukrainian guerrilla movement does not sleep even in the temporarily occupied cities: the Ukrainian flag flies over the Kherson railway station. Because Kherson is Ukraine. That’s how it was, is, and will be,” Ukrzaliznytsia state railway operator said in a statement.
7 p.m: Ukrainian sappers have finished demining all the main roads in Kyiv Oblast, Ukrainian President’s Office deputy head Kyrylo Tymoshenko has reported.
He also said that the government has returned road lightning. Overall 1,016 settlements have already been liberated in Kyiv Oblast, and humanitarian headquarters are working there.
6.11 p.m: Russians bombed a newly reconstructed House of Culture in Lozova, a city in Kharkiv Oblast, leaving at least 7 people wounded, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an Instagram post.
“Seven victims, including an 11-year-old child,” Zelensky said. “The occupiers identified culture, education, and humanity as their enemies. What is in the minds of people who choose such targets? Absolute evil, absolute stupidity.”
5.29 p.m: Ukrainian government has ordered Mariupol defenders to stop the defense of Azovstal, Azov regiment commander Denys Prokopenko has said in a video statement.
“The top military leadership has ordered us to save the life and health of the garrison’s defenders. For that, we must stop the city’s defenses,” Prokopenko said.
Despite heavy fighting, circular defense, and lack of supplies, Ukrainian defenders emphasized three important conditions for them to surrender to the Russians: civilians, wounded soldiers, and dead soldiers must be evacuated and get medical treatment.
2.17 p.m: Russians shelled a school in Severodonetsk, a city in Luhansk Oblast, killing at least three people, local governor Serhiy Hayday said.
According to him, the occupiers struck the school with artillery. More than 200 people with children were in the school shelter at the time. Three adults died.
The man of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as of May 20 Ukraine War Map
2.01 p.m: Rubizhe, a city in Luhansk Oblast has become another Mariupol, Luhansk governor Serhiy Hayday said, meaning Rubizhne was also almost destroyed by the Russians before they have managed to take it under control.
“Rubizhne has shared the fate of Mariupol. The industrial city is completely destroyed, there are no surviving buildings, and it is impossible to restore many houses. There are cemeteries in the courtyards,” Hayday said.
1.47 p.m: Russians have been blocking Ukrainian civilians, who have been trying to evacuate from the occupied territory, Kherson governor Hennadiy Lahuta told Interfax Ukraine news agency.
For the fifth day in a row, the occupiers are blocking an evacuation column heading from Berislav and Davydiv Brid towards Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast,” Lahuta said. “This is the only way for people can leave the occupied territory.”
According to Lahuta, the occupiers “did not give any humanitarian” green “corridor for the import of food or medicine and, most importantly, for evacuation of orphanages, boarding schools, evacuation of the elderly, sick people.
The governor said that the Russians have artificially created a difficult situation with the provision of food to the people of the region. The food they import from the temporarily occupied Crimea is in short supply, and they do not allow Ukrainian volunteers to enter the occupied part of Kherson Oblast.
A map shows the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast. Russian-controlled territories are in red Ukraine war map
Morning Digest
In his late-night address to the Ukrainian people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces continue to advance in Kharkiv Oblast. Russian forces have been trying to counterattack in Kharkiv Oblast, trying to return control over their previous positions, shelling mostly civilian infrastructure, Ukraine’s Army General Staff has reported.
The situation in Donbas remains very tough for the Ukrainian army. “It is like hell there,” Zelensky said, that some 12 Ukrainian soldiers died in the past day alone in Donbas.
Russian continue offense on Severodonetsk, a city in Luhansk Oblast. 13 civilians were killed and more than 60 buildings were destroyed during the last 24 hours, Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai has said in a statement. However, the occupiers have failed to storm the city and had to retreat bearing losses.
At the same time, Ukrainian forces repelled 14 attacks in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Eight tanks, 14 units of combat armored vehicles, and six units of enemy vehicles were destroyed. Air defense units shot down one Orlan-10 UAV, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Russian forces tried to cut the Bakhmut highway in Donetsk Oblast but failed and had to retreat. Ukrainian forces destroyed more than 40 occupiers on the eastern front during the past day, Ukrainian Operative Command East has reported.
Overall, the Ukrainian army has already eliminated 28,700 Russian soldiers since the start of the full-scale invasion.
The evacuation of Ukrainian defenders from Azovstal, the steel mill that used to be the last Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol for more than 80 days, remains the top focus.
Zelensky has also said he has been doing everything possible to return Ukrainian defenders of Azovstal home safe.
“I am doing my best to keep the most influential international forces informed and, as far as possible, involved in rescuing our military,” Zelensky said.
UK Defence Intelligence has reported some 1700 Ukrainian soldiers have already left Azovstal over the past day, but it is unknown how many of them are still left at the factory.
In an evening video statement on May 19 Sviatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, said that the commanders of the Ukrainian forces are still staying in the factory. “The operation continues, I can’t reveal any details. Hope to see you soon,” Palamar said.
War critics in Russia, facing continuing crackdown, turn to craftier, coded protests
Markus Ziener – May 20, 2022
A few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow resident Vera Bashmakova took a public stand, displaying a message on her car that was impossible to miss. The letters were so large that they covered the entire rear window of her orange 2014 Lada Granta. They read: Nyet Voyne, No War. A three-letter word followed by a five-letter word.
“I put the stickers there because I was outraged about the war in Ukraine,” the 38-year-old biologist says. “I believe that war cannot be a solution to any problem, it can only create new ones.”
A few days later, when Bashmakova was taking her 4-year-old daughter Taisia to kindergarten in a western district of the capital, her car was stopped by police. What followed was a fine of 30,000 rubles, about $450, for demeaning the armed forces of the Russian Federation.
Bashmakova is one of thousands of Russians who have paid a price for speaking their minds about the nearly three-month invasion. Depending on what is considered the severity of the offense, sanctions have ranged from fines to sentences of five days in jail to years in prison.
“People are definitely afraid,” says Alexandra Arkhipova, an anthropologist with a Moscow-based institute. This, however, does not mean that criticism has subsided. While boisterous public demonstrations have largely halted, protests have often moved to less plain and direct forms.
One means is placing asterisks on a sheet of paper and holding it up, three asterisks for the Russian word “no,” five asterisks for “war,” arranged one below the other. No words, no letters, only symbols — however, the meaning is easily decoded by any passer-by.
Sometimes the symbolism refers to the Soviet Union era, now gone for more than three decades. Whenever a Soviet leader died, state television broadcast the Tchaikovsky ballet “Swan Lake.” Today, the symbols of “Swan Lake” — dancing ballerinas arranged in a row — can be found spray-painted on walls.
“The symbolism is clear and self-explanatory,” says Arkhipova. It expresses the desire to have a change of guards in today’s Kremlin.
“The goals of this guerrilla war is to break the information blockade and to get other Russians out of their comfort zone,” she says.
Coded protest can be subtle, ironic or bordering on the absurd. One flier pinned on a Moscow lamppost read: “A dog is lost! It ran away after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Its name is Future. Your kids will not have Future if you will not fight against the war right now. Thousands of Ukrainian kids have already lost their future. There will be a reward.”
Another codeword is the term Grus 200, or Cargo 200. It can be found scrawled on billboards or other public advertisements. Grus 200 refers to the transportation of body bags of fallen Russian troops home from the battlefield. It is military jargon that came into use during the Russian war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It also has become a euphemism for irreversible losses in conflict.
Thousands of Russian soldiers been killed in Ukraine, yet in Russia’s big cities, this reality has not fully hit home. According to the Ukrainian secret service, most of the deceased are from remote areas in Siberia, the south or the far east. Written on walls in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Grus 200 is meant to amplify war deaths among residents of in the major cities.
Protesting remains dangerous, even when coded. Police are catching up with the creativity of protesters, at times arresting people holding up blank white sheet of paper. They often have help from others.
“We also see a big wave of denunciations,” Arkhipova says. “This seems to be directly related to Russian propaganda, which labels internal critics as enemies of Russia.”
That goes back to statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, who in mid-March called for a “natural and necessary self-detoxification of society.”
“Russians will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like an insect in their mouth, spit them onto the pavement,” Putin said during a virtual meeting with regional leaders.
Last month, the case of an English teacher from Korsakov, a small town on the Pacific island of Sakhalin, made waves. Marina Dubrova, 57, showed high school students a YouTube video in which children chanted in Russian and Ukrainian about a “world without war.” When asked afterward by some of her students what she thought about war, she replied, “I think war is a mistake.”
The conversation was recorded on a smartphone. “Eventually this recording ended up with the police,” Dubrova later told Siberia Realities, a media platform of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The next day, she was summoned by the school principal to his office, where he told her not to politicize the students. Just a few days later, police officers came to the school with a complaint against Dubrova — for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian military. The Korsakov City Court sentenced the teacher to a fine of 30,000 rubles. Teachers in Russian provinces earn on average between 15,000 and 20,000 rubles a month.
The Russian judicial apparatus has a wide range of offenses that result in fines or prison, some of them put into place after the war began. According to OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights media project fighting political persecution, nearly 15,500 Russians have been detained since the war began. A new provision in the Criminal Code makes it a crime to call for the end the war or to disseminate information about the war that does not toe the official line.
According to Arkhipova, at least seven citizens have been jailed for spreading information about massacres by Russian soldiers in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Mariupol. Other criminal offenses include shouting slogans against the government, posting negative articles on social media or spray painting graffiti.
“There is a clear message being sent with all of this: You can get in trouble for anything. So don’t get involved in politics,” Arkhipova says. This is a clear breach of a tacit pact in society that has existed in recent years, she said. As long as a citizen does not interfere, the state grants a reasonably decent life. “But with the war, that pact was destroyed.”
Bashmakova, who was clear and direct in her protest, would not admit defeat so easily. When she was fined, she challenged the verdict. “I appealed because I believe that the inscription ‘No War’ does not discredit the armed forces of the Russian Federation in any way.” This week, however, the court rejected the appeal. If she still does not pay, the 30,000 rubles will be automatically deducted from her bank account.
The changes, if enduring, could shift the momentum in the grinding battle for the region, which Ukraine’s leader has warned is being turned into “hell” as Russia ramps up the pressure.
In the last 24 hours, Russian forces have managed to break through Ukrainian defenses west of the strategic town of Popasna in the region’s Luhansk province, capturing several villages while also pushing south, said Michael A. Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst, and head of intelligence at Le Beck consultancy.
“This is the first time in weeks that they are actually able to pierce through Ukrainian defenses, which is notable in itself,” Horowitz said, noting that Russian forces have generally only managed to advance in a very “incremental” manner, taking one village at a time.
But beyond that, the location of this advance is also important, he said, with the Russian forces now closer to encircling and cutting off the key city of Severodonetsk, the last major city under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk province — something they have been attempting to do for weeks, Horowitz said.
LPR Russia Ukraine Military Operation (Alexander Galperin / Sputnik via AP)
The province of Luhansk, together with neighboring Donetsk, forms the industrial Donbas region that has become the key focus of the Kremlin’s war offensive after it failed to capture the capital Kyiv and recently was pushed back from its positions around Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the northeast.
Russia has failed to make much progress in the Donbas for weeks, and seemingly further scaled back its ambitions after originally intending to take full control of the region. But the offensive does now seem to be bearing fruit, with Russian troops advancing behind intense bombardment.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his overnight address that the Russians were “trying to ramp up pressure” in the Donbas, which they had “completely destroyed.”
“It’s hell there,” he said. “And it is not an exaggeration.”
Ukraine’s military similarly reported in its Friday morning update that Moscow’s troops had “intensified offensive and assault operations to improve the tactical situation” in the Donetsk direction, using mortars, artillery, multiple-rocket launchers and aircraft.
War Situation in Donetsk, Ukraine – 19 May 2022 (Alex Chan Tsz Yuk / Sipa via AP)
It’s in Luhansk that there were clearer signs of Russian progress, however. The military and regional governor Serhiy Haidai both said that invading troops were “conducting an offensive operation in the areas around” Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, two key cities in the Luhansk province.
The Ukrainian military also said that Russian forces were “trying to improve the tactical position of their units near Volodymyrivka,” Horowitz noted. That town is around 9 miles west of Popasna, he said, suggesting Russian forces did breach through some of the Ukrainian defenses gathered around the strategic location.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based military think tank, similarly said in its most recent assessment that “Russian forces are intensifying operations to advance north and west of Popasna in preparation for an offensive toward Severodonetsk.”
In what appeared to be a reference to these advances, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoihu said Friday that the “liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic is nearing completion” and that Russian forces were expanding their control over the Donbas.
This comes as Moscow is likely to reinforce its forces in the Donbas once it fully secures the southern port city of Mariupol, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday, after months being tied up by the last pocket of Ukraine’s resistance in the city.
But while the Russian advances are notable, experts said it’s too early to talk about any changing of the tide in the battle for the Donbas.
“It’s about whether it can be sustained and consolidated and pushed on forward from,” said Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
All in all, it’s a sign of a hugely stripped-down offense, which went from trying to take a big area of the Donbas at the start to basically just snipping off the tip of the Ukrainian position, O’Brien said.
“On the other hand,” he added, “you could say that at least the Russians have shown the ability to, for the first time in a while down there, have the strength to push forward.”
The Do-or-Die Battle That Putin Could Actually Win
Tom Mutch – May 20, 2022
Tom Mutch
LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine—The last road into the Ukrainian city of Luhansk was in flames. A huge bonfire raged on a parking space where a group of civilian and military vehicles had parked just minutes before. Anton, our military driver, pushed the accelerator to the floor as we drove past at around 140 kilometers an hour. As we zip down the road, three Ukrainian tanks roll the other way straight to the front line.
The tiny sliver of Luhansk Oblast still under Ukrainian control is now the center of the increasingly vicious war that is entering its fourth month. On all other fronts, such as Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine has enjoyed a stream of crushing victories, relieving its two main cities from the hell of Russian shelling. But here in the Donbas, Russia’s grinding advance continues. The scaling-down of Russia’s war aims from a takeover of all Ukraine to an encirclement of Ukraine’s troops in this region is little comfort to the men and women who defend the front lines.
In the distance, plumes of smoke were rising from a series of artillery strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure in the area. “The Russians do in here just what they did in Mariupol… they just destroy the city block by block with artillery,” a tall, fair-haired Ukrainian major who goes by the nom de guerre ‘Spartak’ told The Daily Beast on a recent visit to the embattled urban sprawl. The 23-year-old from the western city of Lviv is now the deputy commander of a battalion that has been fighting on the front lines against Russia’s remorseless assault on the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. Soldiers usually avoid giving last names for operational security purposes.
As artillery thundered all around us, another one of the soldiers—a major called Roman—told us that “today is noticeably quiet here, because the Russian troops have taken Rubizhne near Severodonetsk and are now trying to reposition their forces. When they have done that, they will start again.”
It did not sound quiet to us. The constant boom of GRAD rocket launchers and howitzers filled the sky, and the impacts were close enough to shake the earth. Roman pulled out a map on his phone to show us the positions of the Russian forces. He was exhausted from three months of combat on this front, and is pessimistic about Ukrainian prospects in Luhansk. “If our situation doesn’t improve, we could be encircled here.”
Roman, a Ukrainian soldier who has been fighting on the frontlines against Russia’s remorseless assault on the Donbas region.Tom Mutch
Like the rest of Vladimir Putin’s war, this offensive is not going entirely according to plan. In one of the biggest military blunders of the invasion, Russians forces recently tried to throw a pontoon bridge over the Siversky Donets river near Bilhorivka and encircle Ukrainian troops from behind. Ukrainian spotters picked them out and artillery pulverized them, destroying dozens of armored vehicles and killing up to 450 troops. Despite this, Russians continue to make slow and grueling, but very real, gains.
Roman is skeptical that relief is on its way. “It is my understanding that our goal here is to take the fire on us as much as possible to liberate Kharkiv, the Kherson direction,” he says with a sigh. “So, naturally we need to hold out here for some time.” A common complaint from commanders here is that they have no answer to Russia’s overwhelming artillery barrages, which could completely level a town and leave soldiers nowhere to take defensive positions. Western-supplied artillery is reaching the battlefield, but much slower than the Ukrainians would like.
There is no electricity and or running water, so they drink from a well and use head torches and candles for light. More crucially in an information war, there is no access to the outside world. Russian radio continually broadcasts propaganda about Russian advances throughout the country. At one point, Tatiana Malorezka, a resident, stopped and asked us: “What is going on? The Russians say they have captured Severodonetsk?!” When we reassure her that the Ukrainians still hold the city, her relief is palpable. “My nerves just can’t take it anymore, you know? I don’t want the Russians to be here!”
Tatiana said she could live under almost any circumstances without power or running water as long as it was under the Ukrainian flag. “I can never live under Russian occupation,” she told us. “It is the only thing that would make me leave.” She handed us three numbers of family members who have fled to western Ukraine. “Please call them and tell them that I and the rest of the family are OK,” she pleaded. One of the numbers was for her son, who is in the army and is fighting on the front line. She hasn’t been able to contact him and has no way to know if he is dead or alive.
Back in Slovyansk, we talk to Andrii, a soldier who is more upbeat about Ukraine’s chances in the region. “I think we will recapture Rubizhne soon,” he says. “They want to flank from Kharkiv to Luhansk and they want to go down south through Luhansk and those cities. I heard information from our intelligence agencies that the Russians are all demoralized. You must understand the reason. They are fighting only for money and the stupid idea that they are ‘liberators.’ They are not fucking liberators. We are fighting for our people and our land and that is why we will win.”
Ukrainian officials estimate that there are still thousands of civilians living in the Severodonetsk and Lysychansk urban areas in Luhansk Oblast. They mostly live underground in shelters and bunkers. On the outskirts of a school in Lysychansk is a building that the residents have converted into a shelter. What is most striking is the number of young people who have remained behind there—there are at least a dozen ranging from infants to older teenagers.
A blown out classroom in the school where the bunker is located.Tom Mutch
Today, they say, there has been less shelling than before, and the residents have ventured outside. Sixteen-year-old Daniil, who was doing an apprenticeship to be a car mechanic before the war, says that they have barely left the basement in a month due to the shelling that has hit almost every building in Lysychansk—including their own. Upstairs, one of the parents shows us three rooms in the school. On the table of one of them are two massive shards of a rocket. The rooms almost look normal, but part of the roof is missing, and the supply closet is a wreck covered in rubble.
As we leave, we take three women who have decided to evacuate to the relative safety of Lysychansk in our car with us. One is 19-year-old Valeria, who was a university student in Kharkiv when the war broke out. Rather than fleeing the region altogether, she wants to go straight to her grandmother in Lysychansk to look after her. “My parents died when I was young, and she is all I have left,” Valeria says.
Valeria and her grandmotherTom Mutch
When we ask her what she thinks of the war, she says that she “does not understand how this could happen. Why couldn’t the men… just sit down and figure out a way to avoid the war?” Our translator Oleksiy replies, “and how do you expect to be able to sit down with people who just want to kill us and get rid of Ukraine completely?”
At that moment, we hear a huge crack as shelling rains down on the city we just left, and Valeria stares silently out the window.
