Key events
The ISW analysis comes after Reuters reported that Wagner group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had ditched his plans to withdraw from the eastern city of Bakhmut on Sunday after receiving promises that his fighters would receive as much ammunition as they needed. Prigozhin wrote on Telegram:
Overnight we received a combat order, for the first time in all this time. We have been promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue further operations. We have been promised that everything needed to prevent the enemy from cutting us off [from supplies] will be deployed on the flank.
Prigozhin had announced on Friday that his fighters, who have spearheaded the months-long assault on Bakhmut, would pull out because he said his men had been starved of ammunition and taken “useless and unjustified” losses as a result.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov “likely effectively blackmailed” Russia’s Ministry of Defence into allocating Wagner more resources, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
The US-based think tank writes:
Kadyrov published a letter on May 6 asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to order Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Director of the Russian National Guard (Rosgvadia) Viktor Zolotov to authorize the transfer of Chechen “Akhmat” units from “other directions” to assume Wagner’s positions in the Bakhmut direction.
Kadyrov’s letter to Putin bypassed the Russian chain of command, and the withdrawal of Chechen forces from other parts of the theater likely posed a risk to Russian defensive lines, a risk that [Army General Valery] Gerasimov and Shoigu, or Putin, appear to have been unwilling to take.
Kyiv’s local council gives all-clear after air raid
Kyiv’s local council has sounded the all-clear after Russia carried out strikes on the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Monday.
“Please keep an eye on reports and return to shelter if the siren sounds again,” the city’s administration wrote on Telegram.
The strikes come as Russian forces begin evacuating people from the Russian-occupied area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, with more than 1,600 people, including 660 children, evacuated so far, Reuters reported, citing a Moscow-installed local official.
Ukraine is soon expected to start a much-anticipated counteroffensive to retake Russian-held territory, including in the Zaporizhzhia region and on Saturday the head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog warned that the situation around the plant had become “potentially dangerous”.
In its morning update on Sunday, Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces were evacuating local Russian passport-holders. “The first to be evacuated are those who accepted Russian citizenship in the first months of the occupation,” it said in a statement.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
Five injured in Kyiv as Russia launches new wave of strikes
Five people have been injured in Kyiv as Russia launched a fresh assault across Ukraine in the early hours of Monday, with explosions reported in the capital as well as in the Black Sea city of Odesa and in the southern region of Kherson.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that three people were injured in the city’s Solomyanskyi district and two others injured when drone wreckage fell on to at two-storey building in the Sviatoshyn district.
“Likely as a result of debris falling on a parked car in the yard of a residential building, the car caught fire,” the city’s military administration added in a post on Telegram. “There is a recorded fall of debris on a residential building.”
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Helen Livingstone.
At least five people have been wounded by Russian strikes on Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, city officials have said, as Moscow launched another large-scale attack on Ukraine.
Three people were also injured in blasts in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district and two others were injured when drone wreckage fell on to the Sviatoshyn district, both west of the capital’s centre, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram messaging channel.
Sviatoshyn, on the western edge of Kyiv, is a historical neighbourhood of the capital. Witnesses said they have heard numerous explosions in Kyiv, with local officials saying that air defence systems were repelling the attacks.
It comes amid fears for the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Russia evacuates 1,679 people, including 660 children, from areas nearby.
The head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog, Rafael Grossi, warned at the weekend that the situation around the plant has become “potentially dangerous” as Moscow-installed officials began evacuating people from nearby areas.
Ukraine is expected to start soon a much-anticipated counteroffensive to retake Russian-held territory, including in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Other key developments:
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An explosion was also heard overnight following a missile attack that hit the Black Sea city of Odesa, a local Ukrainian official said, and Ukrainian media reported sounds of explosions in the southern region of Kherson.
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Russia’s Wagner mercenary group appears to have ditched plans to withdraw from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, saying they had been promised more arms by Moscow. Ukraine’s general in charge of the defence of the besieged city said late on Sunday that Russia had intensified shelling and hoped to take Bakhmut by Tuesday, Victory Day in Russia, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war. Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi vowed to do everything he could to prevent it.
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A total of 1,679 people, including 660 children, have been evacuated from areas near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, a Moscow-installed official in the Russia-controlled parts of the Zaporizhzhia region has said. The head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has warned that the situation around the plant has become “potentially dangerous” with Ukraine expected to start a much-anticipated counteroffensive to retake Russian-held territory soon, including in the Zaporizhzhia region.
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Nine Ukrainian explosives experts who were engaged in de-mining were killed in a single Russian attack in the southern Kherson region on Saturday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his latest evening address.
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Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has threatened anyone convicted of carrying out Saturday’s attack on nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin with death in prison. Writing on Telegram, Medvedev, who is now deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said that any suspects, “like other criminals, will be tried for the attack and sentenced to long prison terms”. Prilepin, who was injured in a car explosion on Saturday, has been brought out of a medically induced coma, according to local officials.
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Five people have been injured in a strike on the city of Balakliia, local authorities have said. Oleg Synegubov, the governor of eastern Kharkiv region, said on Telegram that a missile landed near a car park on Sunday.
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Sixteen settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region were hit by a total of 75 strikes over the past day, according to the local military administration.
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A 72-year-old woman has been killed and two people were injured by shelling in the southern Dnipro region, local officials said.
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The number of Russian soldiers killed or injured since the start of the war stands at 193,430, according to the latest estimates from the Ukrainian military.
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Russia’s population has declined by 2 million more than expected over the last three years due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, according to UK intelligence.
