Yahoo! News

Russia parades tanks and missiles on streets of Moscow ahead of Victory Day celebration

Kate Buck – May 5, 2022

Russia is in the midst of rehearsals for their Victory Day parade, showing off their arsenal of missiles, tanks and military prowess as their attempted invasion of Ukraine continues.

Thousands of troops are set to march through the Red Square on 9 May for the 77th annual ceremony to commemorate Russia’s efforts in the Second World War.

It comes more than two months after Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in an offensive which Ukrainian authorities claim has killed around 25,000 Russian troops.

They also claim to have destroyed thousands of pieces of Russian equipment, including planes, tanks, cruise missiles and even warships.

In Moscow, Putin’s forces are showing off what else they have at their disposal in its annual military show of strength, with thousands preparing to march carrying hammer and sickle flags in reminder of the past of the Soviet Union.

The skies are also set to become part of the stage for the ceremony, with fighter jets forming a “Z” formation – the symbol painted on the vehicles involved in the Ukraine invasion.

The Russian air force will use eight MiG-29 jets to form the symbol that is now synonymous with the war.

The rehearsal also saw the Ilyushin Il-80 take to the skies – a modified passenger jet which has become known as Putin’s “doomsday plane” as it would be where he would take control if nuclear war was to break out.

Some Western officials have warned that the parade could see Putin make a major announcement concerning Ukraine – potentially using it to declare a global war on Nazis and mass mobilize his people.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said last week: “He is probably going to declare on May Day that ‘we are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people’.

“Putin, having failed in nearly all objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got… and just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country.”

There had been rumours that Russia might use the day to declare an official war on Ukraine – though the Kremlin has denied these reports, saying there is “no chance” they will use the day for that purpose and branding it “nonsense”.

What is the Victory Day parade?

Victory Day is a public holiday for Russians to remember those who were killed during the Second World War.

Troops parade across Moscow’s Red Square to mark the Soviet Union’s role in the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 and the Kremlin also shows off its military arsenal, including intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Last year, over 12,000 troops took part and more than 190 pieces of military hardware including more than 80 military aircraft were displayed for all to see.

Putin usually oversees the pomp of the traditional march from an area packed with war veterans.

This year’s parade comes at a time when Russia has seen its troops repelled from significant parts of Ukraine following an invasion that is widely believed to be going badly for Moscow.

In recent weeks, Russian soldiers have mounted a fresh offensive on the south east of the country, trying to take control of the Donbas.

There have been reports that Russian forces are planning on staging their own Victory Day parade in the southern city of Mariupol which has been largely taken over by Russian forces.

Watch: Downed Russian helicopter pulled from Kyiv reservoirScroll back up to restore default view.

The Ukrainian Military Intelligence (GUR) said in a statement published on Telegram that the city “will become the centre of celebrations”.

“The main avenues of the city are [being] urgently cleaned, the debris and the bodies of the dead removed, as well as the ammunition which did not explode,” it added.

The GUR described the parade as part of a “large-scale propaganda campaign” which will attempt to influence the 120,000 people who have remained in the destroyed city, which has been under siege for the best part of two months.

Reuters

Russian fighting destroys, damages nearly 400 hospitals, medical centres-Zelenskiy

Alessandra Prentice and Natalia Zinets – May 5, 2022

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has devastated hundreds of hospitals and other medical institutions and left doctors without drugs to tackle cancer or the ability to perform surgery, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Zelenskiy said many places lacked even basic antibiotics in eastern and southern Ukraine, the main battlefields.

“If you consider just medical infrastructure, as of today Russian troops have destroyed or damaged nearly 400 healthcare institutions: hospitals, maternity wards, outpatient clinics,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to a medical charity group on Thursday.

In areas occupied by Russian forces the situation was catastrophic, he said.

“This amounts to a complete lack of medication for cancer patients. It means extreme difficulties or a complete lack of insulin for diabetes. It is impossible to carry out surgery. It even means, quite simply, a lack of antibiotics.”

In one of the most widely denounced acts of the war, a maternity hospital was all but destroyed on March 9 in the besieged port city of Mariupol. Russia alleged pictures of the attack were staged and said the site had been used by armed Ukrainian groups.

The Kremlin says it targets only military or strategic sites and does not target civilians. Ukraine daily reports civilian casualties from Russian shelling and fighting, and accuses Russia of war crimes. Russia denies the allegations.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of Donetsk region, said 25 people had been injured in intense shelling in the town of Kramatorsk, site of a railway station bombing last month in which more than 50 died. He said a total of 32 residential buildings had been damaged in the shelling.

Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield reports by Russia and Ukraine.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West say the fascist allegation is baseless and that the war is an unprovoked act of aggression. More than 5 million Ukrainians have fled abroad since the start of the invasion.

Russia has turned its heaviest firepower on Ukraine’s east and south, after failing to take the capital Kyiv. The new front is aimed at limiting Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, vital for its grain and metal exports, and linking Russian-controlled territory in the east to Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014.

‘BLOODY’ BATTLE FOR MARIUPOL

In the port city of Mariupol an estimated 200 civilians, along with Ukrainian resistance fighters, are trapped undergound in the Azovstal steel plant with little food or water.

The steel works was rocked by heavy explosions on Thursday as Russian forces fought for control of Ukraine’s last stronghold and the United Nations rushed to evacuate civilians.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia was prepared to provide safe passage for the civilians but reiterated calls for Ukrainian forces inside to disarm.

Putin declared victory over Mariupol on April 21 and ordered his forces to seal off the Soviet-era plant but not venture inside its underground tunnel network.

Ukraine’s stubborn defence of Azovstal has underlined Russia’s failure to take major cities in a 10-week-old war that has united Western powers in arming Kyiv and punishing Moscow with sanctions.

Clinging on desperately, Ukrainian fighters have reported fierce battles with Russian troops in Azovstal.

A Ukrainian fighter who said he was holed up in Azovstal accused Russian forces of breaching the plant’s defences for a third day despite an earlier pledge by Moscow to pause military activity to permit civilian evacuations.

“Heavy, bloody fighting is going on,” said Captain Sviatoslav Palamar of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment. “Yet again, the Russians have not kept the promise of a ceasefire.” Reuters could not independently verify his account or location.

The Kremlin denies Ukrainian allegations that Russian troops stormed the plant in recent days.

Aerial footage of the plant, released Thursday by Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, showed three explosions striking different parts of the vast complex, which was engulfed in heavy, dark smoke.

Reuters verified the footage location by matching buildings with satellite imagery, but was unable to determine when the video was filmed.

Russia’s military promised to pause its activity for the next two days to allow civilians to leave. The Kremlin said humanitarian corridors from the plant were in place.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Thursday that people would be evacuated from Mariupol on Friday at 1200 local time (0900 GMT).

MORE SANCTIONS LOOM

Sweeping sanctions from Washington and European allies have hobbled Russia’s $1.8 trillion economy, while billions of dollars worth of military aid has helped Ukraine frustrate the invasion.

European Union countries are “almost there” in agreeing the bloc’s proposed new package of sanctions against Russia, including an oil embargo, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

The Kremlin said Russia was weighing responses to the EU plan.

Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia might step up its offensive before May 9, when Moscow commemorates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

(Reporting by Ronald Popeski and Reuters bureaus; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Stephen Coates)

The Week

What’s happening inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol?

Peter Weber, Senior editor – May 5, 2022

More than 100 Ukrainian civilians have been evacuated from the sprawling Azovstal iron and steel plant in Russian-occupied Mariupol, and about 200 are still awaiting rescue from the complex, including some 20 children. The evacuations, after weeks encircled by Russian forces and bombarded with Russian shells and missiles, were negotiated with mediation from the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The first evacuees reaching relative safety “carried with them fresh accounts of survival and terror” from beneath the wreckage of the Azovstal steel works and the ruined port city of Mariupol, The New York Times reports. What is happening inside the massive iron and steel plant?

What is the Azovstal steel plant?

The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works opened in 1933, when Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union, then was rebuilt after World War II into a sprawling plant covering four square miles. Before Russia’s invasion earlier this year, it produced 4.3 million tons of steel a year. “It is a labyrinth of rail systems, workshops, blast furnaces, and warehouses, with many of the buildings made of thick concrete and designed to withstand high temperatures,” the Times reports. Underground is a network of tunnels and bunkers.

“It goes six stories down and it’s about the size of Vilnius,” Lithuania’s capital, military analyst ret. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said on CNN. “It’s a huge underground city with a lot of ability to attack the aggressors.” It is where the remaining Ukrainian troops defending Mariupol are making their last stand.

How many Ukrainian troops are inside the plant?

There are about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders at the plant, mostly with the 36th Marine Brigade and the controversial Azov Battalion, but also police officers, border guards, and anyone else willing to fight. “Some of them guard the territory, some of them prevent attempted attacks, some of them are responsible for a ceasefire, some of them help to clear the rubble under shelling,” explained Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Battalion.

An estimated 500 troops are wounded at the plant, and Russia bombed the field hospital in late April, holed-up troops showed on social media. Russian shelling has reduced most of the above-ground buildings to rubble, the Times demonstrated in juxtaposed video taken before the invasion and in mid-April.

Why are civilians holed up there?

The steel plant’s warren of tunnels and bunkers was designed to transport equipment between buildings, not for military use, according to Metinvest, the steel and mining conglomerate that owns Azovstal. But steelworkers started sheltering underground in 2014, when Russian-backed separatists tried to seize Mariupol.

“Ever since the first invasion, we’ve kept the bunkers in good order and supplied with food and water,” enough to house and feed 4,000 people for three weeks, said Galina Yatsura, a Metinvest spokeswoman. More than 2,000 civilians had been staying at the plant since the early days of the invasion, about 60 days before the evacuations started, many of them family members of employees, two employees tell the Times. Ukraine estimates that about 20,000 civilians who stayed in Mariupol were killed in Russia’s scorched-earth battle for control.

How bad are conditions inside the plant?

Bad, according to troops trapped inside and the civilians who have managed to escape. Food, drinkable water, and ammunition are all scarce, and areas of the plant smell like decomposing bodies. “We didn’t see the sun for so long,” Natalia Usmanova, 37, told reporters in Bezimenne after being evacuated Sunday. “I feared that the bunker would not withstand it — I had terrible fear.”

Usmanova said she joked with her husband on the bus that they won’t have to go to the bathroom in the dark, in plastic bags anymore. But “you just can’t imagine what we have been through — the terror,” she added. “I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible.”

“The citizens who left the city say that hell exists and it’s in Mariupol,” Mayor Vadym Boychenko told BBC News. But, he added at a press conference Friday, “if Mariupol is hell, Azovstal is worse.”

Are things any better in the rest of Mariupol?

Not much. Residents who escaped from around the ruined city after it was captured by the Russians survived on sometimes-expired rations handed out early every morning by the occupiers, psychologist Yelena Gibert told reporters, but only after they were forced to listen to the national anthems of Russia and the self-proclaimed separatist Donetsk People’s Republic. There is widespread “hopelessness and despair” in Mariupol, she said, and residents were “starting to talk of suicide because they’re stuck in this situation.”

“They’ve begun to at least remove the trash, which is good,” said evacuee Anastasiya Dembitskaya. “The bodies and the trash and the wires that were lying everywhere.”

Why does Russia want to capture the plant so badly?

Russia needs control of Mariupol to secure a land corridor from Crimea to the Donbas and Russian territory, and the Azovstal complex is the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance. The plant also has its own port facilities on the Sea of Azov.

The Russians “really simply do not care” about “the devastation that’s taking place” at the steel plant, ret. Maj. Gen. James “Spider” Marks told CNN. “Their objective is to wear down the morale of the Ukrainian people and to create a wasteland. Putin has no desire to leave Ukraine and he has no desire to try to rebuild it. This produces for him, in addition, a desired ‘buffer zone.'”

If the remaining Ukrainian troops aren’t given safe passage out, “Russia just levels completely from the face of the earth everything that’s left at the factory,” which “won’t be easy, because one way or another we’ll defend to the last fighter,” Mykhailo Vershynin, head of the Donetsk regional patrol police, tells The Washington Post. “There will be losses for Russia,” and “we’ll be destroyed. … It’s that kind of story.”

Why didn’t the Ukrainian troops flee when they had the chance?

The 36th Marine Brigade and Azov Battalion tied down a dozen or more Russian battalion tactical groups that would have otherwise fought elsewhere in Ukraine. “The defenders of Mariupol will go down in Ukrainian history for their courage and sacrifice,” Hertling says.

Popular Mechanics

Ukraine’s New Heavy Artillery Will Cause Russia a World of Pain

Kyle Mizokami – May 5, 2022

• Ukrainian military forces have credited their artillery with making the biggest dent in the war with Russia.
• The Western coalition supplying Ukraine with weapons is now shipping NATO-standard heavy artillery into the theater to bolster Ukrainian field artillery units.
• The shift to NATO equipment will also make a whole slew of smart artillery shells available that will make Kyiv’s artillery deadlier than ever before.

As Western countries ship increasingly heavy arms to a beleaguered Ukraine, one of the most important transfers so far is an arsenal’s worth of field howitzers. Unlike the Ukrainian army’s existing big guns, these artillery pieces come in NATO calibers and are the key to unlocking the West’s precision-guided artillery technology. The tech, which includes GPS-guided artillery shells and tank-hunting munitions, could make Ukraine’s cannon-cockers exponentially more powerful.

Ukraine’s army has halted Russia’s advance into the country, and in some cases—like northwest of Kyiv—even sent the Russian Ground Forces scurrying back across the border. The Ukrainians have relied heavily on field artillery to hold off Russia’s invasion and consider it their most effective weapon. A recent study from the United Kingdom-based Royal United Services Institute cites a Ukrainian military official as saying “anti-tank missiles slowed the Russians down, but what killed them was our artillery. That was what broke their units.”

The Ukrainian Ground Forces have a considerable number of artillery, both traditional tube and rocket artillery. The total includes 2S3 Akatsiya 152-millimeter and 2S1 122-millimeter Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers; 122-millimeter BM-21 Grad truck-mounted multiple launch rocket systems; and D-20 152-millimeter and D-30 122-millimeter towed artillery pieces. Although theoretically numerous, the pieces are almost all old, produced by the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. The guns are also produced in Soviet-era calibers, which a dwindling number of countries (including Russia and Ukraine) continue to operate.

NATO forces, on the other hand, use standardized 155-millimeter artillery shells. Those three millimeters make a world of a difference, rendering Western and Soviet-derived shells incompatible with one another. But now, as the West grows bolder in sending advanced weapons, Ukraine is set to receive more than 100 155-millimeter artillery pieces. The United States is slated to send 90 M777 towed howitzers, the current towed artillery piece in use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps; Australia is sending six M777s, and Canada is sending four. The Netherlands has promised six Pz2000 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzers, while France will send between 10 and 12 CAESAR truck-mounted 155s.

These howitzers have powerful implications for Ukraine’s hitting power. Ukraine’s current artillery pieces are at least three decades old, have fairly short ranges, and with the exception of Ukraine’s Kvitnyk laser-guided artillery shells, are unable to take advantage of the last four decades of technological progress and innovation. All of the donated pieces, by contrast, were developed and fielded long after Ukraine’s entire artillery fleet was already built. The Soviet-era 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzer has a range of 10.5 miles and can fire up to three 152-millimeter rounds per minute. By comparison, the French CAESAR self-propelled howitzer has a range of nearly 25 miles and can fire up to six rounds per minute.

Ukraine will almost certainly get Western precision-guided rounds as part of the package. The American-developed M982 and M982A1 Excalibur artillery shells can home in on a set of GPS coordinates, and unlike artillery of the past, can hit a target with the first round. Excalibur is so precise, the U.S. Army claims, it will hit within two meters of the target “regardless of range.” This level of accuracy will allow Ukrainian artillerymen to hit more targets faster and without so-called “collateral damage” to civilians still living in combat areas.

Excalibur will allow Ukrainian forces to take out enemy forces quickly and more efficiently than ever before—a major asset for a defending force that might find itself outnumbered. A Bayraktar-type drone, for example, could act as a spotter for an Excalibur-armed artillery unit, locating dozens of enemy targets in a single sortie and sending back GPS coordinates for nearby artillerymen to service. Excalibur could take out stationary enemy vehicles one at a time, or even rain down a curtain of well-placed explosive shells along a trench line of enemy troops. A target that might take one battery of six howitzers to destroy might well just take one Excalibur-armed howitzer to destroy.

Another round likely winging its way to Ukraine is the UK/French BONUS artillery shell. BONUS was developed for one thing and one thing only: to kill tanks and other armored vehicles. BONUS, once fired from the muzzle of a howitzer, flies downrange and ejects two smart submunitions. The two submunitions use a multispectral sensor package to detect enemy armor across an area of up to 32,000 meters. Once an enemy tank or armored vehicle is detected, the submunition fires a self-forging warhead that lances down through the top of the vehicle, penetrating the thin armor and destroying it.

BAE Systems, which is in the process of supplying BONUS to the U.S. Army, says one shell will on average take out one target. Imagine a Russian tank company of ten tanks advancing across an open Ukrainian field. A nearby battery of six M777 howitzers responds to the attack, firing six BONUS at the column. The Russian tank company could lose up to six tanks in a single salvo, instantly rendering the company combat ineffective. BONUS would be devastating against Russian artillery units in firing positions, seeking out and destroying howitzers, ammunition carriers, and headquarters vehicles alike.

The United States and its allies believe Ukraine can win, as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said late last month. The new generation of field artillery on its way to Ukraine, as well as an equally new generation of smart shells, will go a long way toward victory for Kyiv. Russia has faced serious setbacks in its “special military operation,” many of its own making, but the hurt inflicted by Ukraine’s new artillery could cause the Russian Army a whole different level of pain.

The New Voice of Ukraine

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister on how Western arms supplies are safeguarded from Russian interference

May 4, 2022

She also noted that information on the volume, pace and types of supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine – in particular through the newly approved lend lease program – is classified.

“I can only say that behind this is a huge amount of work done by our Ministry of Defense together with the ministers of Western countries,” Malyar said. “Today, our Commander-in-Chief is in direct contact with the commanders-in-chief of other countries regarding the use of these weapons, our current needs, and training – and this is very important.”

Read also: Lend-Lease 2022: How the US can back Ukraine against Putin

The deputy defense minister said that the Ukrainian side is trying to talk as little as possible about the agreements and supplies, because since the first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine the Russians have managed to disrupt several shipments of arms.

“They are experienced ‘KGBists’, they have their own agents everywhere and they work quite subtly, at the level of Western middle-level officials, and political parties loyal to them in the parliaments of different countries,” Malyar said.

Read also: Zelensky believes Lend-Lease for Ukraine will help Ukraine defeat ‘the ideological successors of Nazism’

“Western governments do not support Russia, but if there is one person in the chain integrated into Russian relations, this can already be a problem.”

“If transit takes place through several countries, they are trying to slow it down, or render it impossible at all. Because the transit of weapons is a very specific thing that requires both permits at the highest level and special protocols,” said the Ukrainian official.

Read also: Ukraine’s Armed Forces to transition from Soviet weapons to NATO equipment, says Commander-in-chief Zaluzhnyi

Malyar also added that the Russians are trying to concoct “articles and clips about our humanitarian aid allegedly disappearing or not being unloaded as it should be.”

“Of course, we have logistical problems, we can’t avoid problems altogether. But if you hear that some weapons do not reach the front, these are mere fabrications, because these weapons simply cannot fall into the wrong hands, as we have a clear system of monitoring and control of logistics with our partners,” Malyar said.

She said the system had been put in place together with the United States since the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Washington cannot provide the next batch of weapons if it does not have a clear and complete understanding of what happened to the previous one.

Read also: What’s in the latest US military bundle for Ukraine?

“We have no complaints or questions from the State Department or the U.S. Congress in this regard,” Malyar said.

“Ideas of corruption with Western weapons are emerging in pseudo-expert circles and among people far from the military who are unaware of the fact that you can’t just sell American Javelins on the market.”

Air Force Times

Russia pounds Ukraine, targeting supply of Western arms

Jon Gambrell, Cara Anna, The Associated Press – May 4, 2022

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pounded targets across Ukraine, taking aim at supply lines for foreign weapons in the west and intensifying an offensive in the east, as the European Union moved Wednesday to further punish Moscow for the war with a proposed ban on oil imports.

The Russian military said Wednesday it used sea- and air-launched precision guided missiles to destroy electric power facilities at five railway stations across Ukraine, while artillery and aircraft also struck troop strongholds and fuel and ammunition depots.

The defense minister repeated that Russian forces have blocked off a steel mill in Mariupol from which scores of civilians were evacuated over the weekend. Another official denied they were storming the plant, as its defenders said a day earlier.

Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, said attacks in the eastern Donbas region left 21 civilians dead.

The flurry of attacks over the past day comes as Russia prepares to celebrate Victory Day on May 9, marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. This year the world is watching for whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the occasion to declare a limited victory — or expand what he calls a “special military operation” to a wider war.

A declaration of all-out war would allow Putin to introduce martial law and mobilize reservists to replace what Western officials say have been significant troop losses.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed the speculation as “untrue” and “nonsense.”

As areas across Ukraine came under renewed attack, Belarus, which Russia used as a staging ground for its invasion, announced military drills. The Defense Ministry in Minsk said the exercises that began Wednesday don’t threaten any neighbors but a top Ukrainian official the country will be ready to act if Belarus joins the fighting.

While the Russian attacks were across a wide swath of Ukraine, some were concentrated in and around Lviv, the western city close to the Polish border that has been a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons.

Explosions were heard late Tuesday in the city, which has seen only sporadic attacks during the war and has become a haven for civilians fleeing the fighting elsewhere. The mayor said the strikes damaged three power substations, knocking out electricity in parts of the city and disrupting the water supply. Two people were wounded.

The attacks on rail infrastructure were meant to disrupt the delivery of Western weapons, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said, while his boss, Minister Sergei Shoigu, told top military brass that the West was “stuffing Ukraine with weapons.”

Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped its forces blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the battle for the Donbas, which Moscow now says is its focus following its failure to take Kyiv in the early weeks of the war.

Ukraine has urged the West to ramp up the supply of weapons ahead of that potentially decisive battle. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, which had been slow at first to help arm Ukraine, said Wednesday his government is considering supplying Ukraine with howitzers, in addition to Gepard anti-aircraft guns and other equipment it has already agreed to send.

The governor of the eastern Donetsk region, which lies in the Donbas, said Russian attacks left 21 dead on Tuesday, the highest number of known fatalities since April 8, when a missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk killed at least 59 people.

Russia has deployed a significant number of troops in the region and appears to be trying to advance in the north, as they try to cut Ukrainian forces off, according to an assessment from the British Defense Ministry. However, Moscow’s push has been slow as Ukrainian fighters dig in and use long-range weapons to target the Russians.

In addition to supplying weapons to Ukraine, Europe and the United States have sought to punish Moscow with sanctions. The EU’s top official called on the 27-nation bloc on Wednesday to ban Russian oil imports.

“We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimizes the impact on global markets,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

The proposals need unanimous approval from EU countries and are likely to be the subject of fierce debate. Hungary and Slovakia have already said they won’t take part in any oil sanctions, but von der Leyen didn’t elaborate on whether they would receive an exemption, which appears likely.

Von der Leyen also proposed that Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and two other major banks be disconnected from the SWIFT international banking payment system.

On Tuesday, in one of the most crucial battles of the war, Ukrainian fighters said Russian forces began storming the bombed-out steel mill in Mariupol, the last pocket of resistance in the city. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that was not true.

“There is no assault. We see that there are cases of escalation due to the fact that the militants take up the firing positions. These attempts are being suppressed very quickly,” Peskov said.

Shoigu, the defense minister, said that fighters at the Azovstal mill have been “securely blocked” inside, while Russian forces continue to demand their surrender — something they have repeatedly refused to do.

Over the weekend, however, scores of civilians were successfully evacuated from the plant’s underground tunnels after enduring weeks of shelling.

It is unclear how many Ukrainian fighters are still inside, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000 in recent weeks, and 500 were reported to be wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Officials have expressed hope more people could yet be evacuated. No new rescues from the plant have been announced, but Vereshchuk said Wednesday authorities plan to continue efforts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and nearby areas if the security situation allows it.

Thanks to the evacuation effort over the weekend, 101 people — including women, the elderly, and 17 children, the youngest 6 months old — emerged from the bunkers under the steelworks to “see the daylight after two months,” said Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.

One evacuee said she went to sleep at the plant every night afraid she wouldn’t wake up.

“You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the bomb shelter, in a damp and wet basement, and it is bouncing and shaking,” 54-year-old Elina Tsybulchenko said upon arriving in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest of Mariupol.

Mariupol — and the plant in particular — has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by the war. The Russians’ two-month siege of the strategic port has trapped civilians with little or no food, water, medicine or heat, as Moscow’s forces pounded the city into rubble.

The city’s fall would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas.

Daily Beast

‘They Deceived Us at Every Step’: Troops Say Russia’s War Is in Shambles

Allison Quinn – May 4, 2022

Troops sent into Ukraine to back up Russian forces say they had no choice but to leave because Russian military was in shambles and “they deceived us at every step.”

Soldiers from the breakaway state of South Ossetia—speaking to South Ossetian leader Anatoly Bibilov at a meeting publicized by the independent news outlet MediaZona—rattled off a list of complaints about faulty equipment, lack of leadership and intel, and brainless tactics.

South Ossetia, which relies heavily on military and financial aid from Russia, sent troops to Ukraine in late March to “defend Russia.” Ukrainian military officials said at the time that some 150 South Ossetian troops were joining forces with Russia, but Tskhinvali never gave any official figures.

Many of the soldiers are said to be part of Russian military units based in South Ossetia; Moscow and Tskhinvali struck a deal in 2017 to partially incorporate their armed forces.

But reports soon surfaced of many of them refusing to take part in the fight, vowing not to become “cannon fodder.”

“Nobody got scared here, it’s just that they deceived us at every step,” one of the soldiers told Bibilov of their decision to abandon the fight.

“Of the 11 days [that we were there,] I wouldn’t even wish on an enemy what happened there. All the equipment didn’t work, I’m telling you straight… There was no command staff,” another soldier told the South Ossetian leader.

Out of 10 tanks, the first soldier said, only three fired. “The artillery mortar for the mortar-gunners didn’t work, the legs were all crooked,” he said.

Watch: Ukrainian Military Says It Is Striking Russian-Held Positions Near Izyum

Ukrainian Military Says It Is Striking Russian-Held Positions Near Izyum

Drone footage released by the Ukrainian military on May 3 shows explosions and smoldering vehicles, which it said was the aftermath of artillery attacks on Russian positions near frontlines close to Izyum.While Russian forces have been unable to capture the city of Kharkiv, they have punched south and east. Russian forces control Izyum, and have fought to expand control in nearby Donbas and Luhansk Oblasts. Frontlines in the area are close to Izyum, in Kharkiv Oblast, and Rubizhne, in Luhansk Oblast, according to a May 2 assessment published by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

This video, published by the Ukrainian military on May 3, shows the aftermath of what it said were artillery attacks on Russian positions. Storyful confirmed that the drone footage was taken above the town of Oleksandrivka, located just inside Donetsk Oblast, roughly 15 miles (24.1 km) from Izyum. The exact date of filming has not been confirmed. Credit: Ukrainian Military via Storyful

“There was no command. And if the officers didn’t know what to do, what is the sergeant doing there?” another soldier was quoted saying.

He said “99 percent of the equipment” in another unit didn’t even work, but when the troops warned the senior in command that their vehicles didn’t work and their guns “did not fire,” he shrugged it off and said to just “go like that.”

In another case, troops complained of their commander “disappearing” every time fighting started.

“He was afraid of his own men. He made himself a security team out of a few of the guys. The commander refused to come out and talk to his own guys and was saying that he’d be beaten,” one soldier said.

Eventually, “some guys from spetsnaz [special forces]” really did beat him and left his “face all bloody,” he said.

They said the Russian troops never had backup plans, or escape routes. Another soldier said one of his wounded comrades in Russian-occupied Donetsk was getting no medical care.

“He says that the first day they bandaged him, but there’s still shrapnel inside him. He says his hand is very swollen, and nobody is doing anything, the doctors aren’t even coming to see him. He’s been there for five days, and the doctors are only asking him for money,” he said.

After hearing the soldiers paint a picture of such utter dysfunction, Bibilov asked the men directly if they believe Russia will lose the war.

One soldier spoke up: “Yes, we believe they will lose.”

USA Today

Does Vladimir Putin have an endgame in Ukraine? The next few weeks are crucial.

Maureen Groppe and Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today – May 4, 2022

As the United States and its allies rush more cannons, tanks and ammunition to Ukraine, Russia’s diminished military is looking for victories to justify the huge cost of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Putin hopes to gain in eastern Ukraine and parts of the Black Sea coastline. If successful, he could claim he met an initial objective of securing the Donbas area contested by Ukrainians and Russian-backed separatists since 2014.

If Russia exhausts Ukrainian defenses there, Putin might force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the negotiating table, giving Russia time to rebuild its military for a renewed push on the rest of the country.

Through $1.6 billion in military aid announced last month and visits to Ukraine last week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the United States is trying to help block that option.

Calling the next few weeks pivotal, a senior Defense Department official said Russia will “have some real decisions to make” if its new offensive doesn’t succeed.

What happens in the next month, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, could determine security conditions in Europe for a generation.

Even if Putin continues to be thwarted in his attempt to take over Ukraine, the war could settle into a long-term, low-level conflict as Russian troops remain in parts of the country. Their presence would be a destabilizing force as Russia prepares for a new opportunity.

That’s something the United States hopes to head off.

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said last week when asked how he would define success in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday to approve an additional $33 billion in military, economic, humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine. That would more than triple the amount the United States has committed to the cause.

The funding is intended to meet the needs of the Ukrainian military “during the crucial weeks and months ahead,” Biden said, as well as begin a transition to longer-term security assistance to help Ukraine deter and defend against Russian aggression.

Watch: US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says Ukraine can win war with Russia

Tracking the invasion: See where Russian forces are moving

Could Putin turn Ukraine into another ‘frozen conflict’?

Dmitri Alperovitch, the Russian-born American chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a public policy nonprofit, said the focus in Ukraine’s south and east is the last major offensive Russia’s military can undertake for a while.

This phase of the war, Alperovitch said in an online salon organized by the Defense Priorities think tank, is likely to end “one way or another” in the next four to five weeks.

If Russia’s military can enlarge its holdings in Donbas and connect the area to Crimea, creating a strategic corridor between the Crimean Peninsula and Russian positions in eastern Ukraine, that could allow Putin to claim a victory he can sell to the Russian public, said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University.

“The death and destruction that’s taken place in Ukraine, the atrocities, the dislocation of millions of families, all of this makes it less and less likely that this war will end with a formal settlement,” he said. “It’s hard for me to imagine that Zelenskyy’s room for a political maneuver and Putin’s room for political maneuver overlap.”

“It simply does not exist anymore”: The devastation of Mariupol

US military aid to Ukraine: Breaking down the more than $3 billion assistance

The result might be a years-long territorial dispute with low-level military conflict, as has happened in other areas of interest to Russia.

“Historically speaking, these wars in the Russian periphery end with frozen conflicts,” Kupchan said. “Russian troops have a tendency to show up and not go home.”

After fighting a war with Georgia in 2008, Russia recognized the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. It maintains a military presence there and provides financial support.

Similarly, Russian troops have been stationed for decades as “peacekeepers” in Transnistria, a pro-Russia breakaway region of Moldova.

Learn more: Transnistria, a sliver of land between Moldova and Ukraine, is becoming a focus of war

Putin uses frozen conflicts in former Soviet republics to upset their development and prevent them from aligning with the West, according to experts.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February – aiming to topple the capital of Kyiv – Russian and proxy forces held about 35% of the territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas of Donbas, according to Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a William Perry Fellow at Stanford University.

Taking over all of Donbas might be Putin’s new endgame, Pifer said, but Russia’s ability to do so is debatable.

“There’s still a significant portion of the Ukrainian military in that territory,” he said.

Russian sanctions: While Putin’s Russian family was targeted, a larger shadow family may remain

A port city, a steel cage, a palace: The steps that made Putin ‘the richest man in the world’

‘You can’t reform an army in a matter of a couple of weeks’

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis April 18 that Russian forces may gain ground in the east through the heavy concentration of firepower and the size of their forces. Russia is unlikely to be dramatically more successful than major offensives around Kyiv, according to the analysis, because the military probably hasn’t fixed its underlying problems – poor coordination, the inability to conduct cross-country operations and low morale.

“You can’t reform an army in a matter of a couple of weeks,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said last week on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

The United States increased its military assistance to include the type of weapons needed to fight back in eastern Ukraine, where artillery and armored vehicles are likely to play a central role.

The Ukrainians’ greatest need is for long-range guns and rockets that can reach deep into Russian lines. The terrain in eastern Ukraine is more open than that of the north where forests helped defenders ambush and thrash Russian convoys.

“The open flatlands provide some advantage to the Russian army,” said Garret Martin, an expert on trans-Atlantic relations at American University, “but it exposes them as well.”

The increased stakes are part of what’s driving the urgent mission to supply the Ukrainian army with long-range artillery weapons, according to a senior Defense Department official.

Biden announced on April 21 an $800 million military aid package that includes 72 howitzer artillery cannons. That came days after a separate $800 million batch of weapons included 18 howitzers.

With 90 cannons, the Ukrainian army can outfit about five artillery battalions.

U.S. troops have begun training Ukrainians on how to fire them, a process that takes about a week, according to a second senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

From Potemkin to Putin: What a centuries-old myth reveals about Russia’s war against Ukraine

Opinion: As Mariupol is destroyed, NATO must make it clear to Putin that he will not win.

The howitzers have a range of about 15 miles or longer, depending on the type of shell they fire. The aid package included 144,000 rounds of artillery ammunition.

By extending the amount of training for Ukrainians, the administration signals that the war may go on for weeks or months, according to an assessment by Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Russians have a great deal of combat power inside Ukraine despite losing about 25% of those forces since the invasion began Feb. 24, according to the Pentagon.

Is Putin interested in an off-ramp to the war in Ukraine?

The Russian military learned from its mistakes around Kyiv and appears to have focused on supplying its troops in the east with the fuel and ammunition they need to fight, according to a senior defense official.

As both sides refocused their firepower, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met last month with Putin in Moscow and Zelenskyy in Kyiv. While Guterres was in Ukraine Thursday, a Russian missile struck Kyiv, an attack Zelenskyy said was an attempt to “humiliate” the United Nations.

Putin doesn’t appear to be looking for a way out of the conflict despite his major miscalculation on how events would unfold, experts said.

“I don’t see an off-ramp. I don’t think Putin is interested in an off-ramp,” said Angela Stent, a senior adviser to the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and author of “Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest.”

Rather than a way out, Putin is “desperately looking for a big victory so Russia can dictate the terms of the negotiations,” said Zia Haque, director of the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at Juniata College.

“Putin feels like this is going to be his survival,” Haque said. “He strongly feels that he cannot lose the war. He cannot afford to lose it.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said last week that the only way to end the war is a full withdrawal of Russian troops.

“I think that this war should be finished,” Shmyhal said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “when we clean our territories from Russian occupants.”

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard

Los Angeles Times

Grave by grave, police and war crimes investigators comb a Ukrainian forest

Laura King – May 4, 2022

The Russian troops left weeks ago. But the little forest that lies between this Ukrainian village and a neighboring hamlet keeps yielding bodies, one by one.

The latest was a man with holes in his socks.

On a spring day of fitfully alternating clouds and sunshine, tattered red-and-white police tape marked off the shallow depression into which the body had been dumped and covered with a thin layer of dirt.

A villager stumbled onto it late Tuesday, and by the next morning, after de-miners had swept the area for explosives, black-clad police in white gloves were crouched at the graveside, brushing aside clumps of soil.

In this patch of woods, less than a 40-minute drive from the capital, Kyiv, five bodies have been unearthed in recent weeks, scattered amid what were once Russian fortifications. All were shot. Some bore obvious signs of torture.

For a tiny farming community such as this one, each such discovery is a fresh wound — but at the same time a potential source of relief.

A weathered-looking woman named Alyona, whose brother went missing March 4, was summoned by police to this grove of trees a few dozen feet from the side of a narrow road. They inquired, gently, if this body might be his.

It was not.

“I have to go and do this quite often,” she said quietly. “Every time they find another one.”

When the Russians first arrived, Alyona recounted, her brother and a friend got in the car, intending to go and talk to them about how villagers would be treated. At the time it didn’t seem like a foolhardy thing to do.

She hasn’t seen her brother since.

Before hurrying away without giving her last name, she explained his thinking: “He was under the impression that in the 21st century, these soldiers wouldn’t touch civilians.”

Very quickly, villagers learned otherwise.

Their district, Bucha, with a main city by the same name, is now a bleak watchword for suspected atrocities against civilians in Russian-occupied areas: torture, rape, execution-style killings.

Much of the evidence was unearthed — literally — weeks after the fact, as bodies were discovered in cellars and shallow graves once the occupiers had departed. Other corpses were left in the open, scattered willy-nilly in streets and gardens.

International forensic specialists have joined local police in investigating more than 9,000 potential war crimes, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova, said this week. Since early April, when the Russians abandoned their threatened attack on Kyiv, at least 1,200 civilian deaths have been confirmed in the capital region from the occupation.

Like ripples radiating from a stone tossed in a pond, the killings were concentrated in the more densely populated areas, but also occurred in outlying hamlets such as Vysehrad, little more than a cluster of simple wood or brick structures and farm fields.

Police knew nothing yet of the man whose remains they were unearthing on Wednesday, save that he was thought to be a “local citizen,” said Oleksandr Omelyanenko, the Bucha district police chief.

A few feet away, the newly uncovered corpse lay on its back. The arms were outstretched in a V-shape, a ruched-up black sweater covering the head and part of the torso. Dark trousers bore red racing stripes on the sides. The feet were shoeless, with socks in need of darning.

One black-clad officer crouched near the head of the grave, delicately prising a green-tinted hand free from the dirt, while a colleague stood by, holding a clipboard, making careful notes.

This day was only the beginning of what would be a lengthy and involved forensic process, during which a cause of death would be formally determined. Authorities were hoping that friends or relatives of missing people, who regularly check the district’s morgue, would be able to provide identification.

In this scatter of towns and villages less than an hour’s drive from the capital, cleanup and reconstruction are already proceeding briskly. Well-marked detours route traffic around smashed bridges. Rubble is neatly swept into piles.

In Makariv, the township that encompasses Vysehrad, police set up shop in an outbuilding attached to a small market, after their headquarters across the street were blackened and hollowed by a missile strike.

The damage to communities, though, is not only physical. In the Bucha area, police are investigating about a dozen cases of suspected collaboration, responding to reports that some locals provided aid and assistance to those same Russians who were harming and killing their neighbors.

Meanwhile, the task of exhumation, at once brutal and banal, will probably continue for weeks, months, even years. Omelyanenko said his officers’ daily work would help determine how these civilians died, but do little to answer the more enduring question of why.

“That I don’t know,” he said, glancing toward that day’s forest grave. “How can I answer this?”

NBC News

Ukraine is asking Biden admin for anti-ship missiles, drones and rocket launchers, says congressman

Dan De Luce – May 4, 2022

Ukraine is asking the Biden administration for anti-ship missiles to secure ports that have been blocked by Russia’s navy, as well as more capable drones and multiple rocket launcher systems that can strike Russian forces at a longer distance, according to Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conveyed the request to Crow and other lawmakers who visited Kyiv over the weekend, who then relayed the wish list to President Joe Biden directly, Crow told NBC News.

Ukraine said it needed U.S.-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles or similar weapons to free up the use of the Black Sea port of Odesa and other ports for the export of millions of tons of grain and food. The ports are under a de facto naval blockade by Russian forces off the coast, Crow said.

“They need ground-based anti-ship missiles, the Harpoon or something like it, because one of the biggest challenges they face right now is getting their food exported,” Crow said. “They’re sitting on 12 million tons of foodstuff, wheat grains, sunflower oil, and this food needs to get out both for the Ukrainian economy but also to prevent famine and starvation in Africa and the Middle East, in particular. If it doesn’t get out in the next couple months, it will go bad. We’ll see hunger spike throughout the world.”

Ukraine has mined the waters off its ports to prevent a Russian amphibious invasion, but anti-ship missiles could allow government forces to open a corridor to move ships out of the ports, he said.

Crow later made similar comments to a group of reporters.

Ukraine is also appealing to the U.S. for longer-range drones that can be flown repeatedly in addition to the smaller, one-off “kamikaze” drones that Washington has provided so far, Crow said.

“They need long-range drones that could have much longer ranges and that are re-armable, so not just the kamikaze drones, but things like we have in our U.S. inventory that can go out, strike very long distances and come back to be re-armed with precision munitions,” he said.

In addition, Crow said, Zelenskyy told the congressional delegation his government is asking for multiple-launch rocket systems, particularly the U.S.-made system known as HIMARS. With ranges of more than 100 kilometers, the rocket systems would be “decisive,” as they would enable the Ukrainian military to strike at Russian forces at a longer distance than artillery, a capability urgently needed for fighting in the flat, open terrain in the country’s east and south.

“They need things that can reach out 100-plus kilometers. Artillery can’t go that far. Artillery can go half that distance at best or a third of that. The rocket launches can reach much further and be devastating to enemy units,” Crow said.

Asked if the administration was ready to provide the weapons requested, a State Department spokesperson said, “We have no details to share on this report, but as demonstrated in recent weeks, we are committed to helping Ukraine to defend itself, strengthen Ukraine’s hands on the battlefield and at the negotiating table and bring an end to this war with military assistance, humanitarian aid, and economic support. “

The United States has announced $3.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February.

“Deliveries of our security assistance are occurring daily and at incredible speed. We are the world’s leading provider of security assistance to Ukraine in its hour of need, and we are encouraging allies and partners worldwide to do the same,” the spokesperson added.

Crow said U.S. artillery officers told him Ukrainian forces could be trained quickly in the rocket systems outside the country, with about two weeks of instruction.

The Biden administration has previously said the Harpoon anti-ship missiles are not a good fit for the Ukrainian navy and that Ukrainian ships would not be able to accommodate the Harpoons. But Crow said they could be based on land, and he added that Ukraine has proved capable of handling advanced weapons and fighting with ingenuity.

“I mean these are people fighting for their survival, and every day counts. So why would they ask for something that they’re not going to be able to use?” Crow said.

”I think it’s also fair to say the world has consistently underestimated the Ukrainians and their ability to be innovative, creative, and to make things happen. So I take them at their word when they say they need something that they need it, and we should get it there,” he said.

The U.K. has already announced it will provide Ukraine with anti-ship missiles.

Crow, who serves on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, said the delegation spent four hours with Zelenskyy and that he had a detailed conversation with Zelenskyy about the military situation and the weapons Kyiv needs.

“I personally talked to him for a very long time about what equipment they need, where the equipment is going, the state of their military units, where the offenses are going to be, how they’re going to handle it.” Crow said.