Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Video above by Steve Rosenberg, BBC News correspondent in Moscow.
Stories we’re following…
The Ukrainian Defense Forces launched a counterattack near Bohdanivka, Markove, Hryhorivka, Ivanivske, and New York and are holding at least one ground supply line to their garrison in Bakhmut.
Ukrainian forces launched more than 10 drones overnight on the Crimean Peninsula, including three on the port of Sevastopol, a Russian-installed official said early on Sunday, adding that air defence systems repelled all the attacks on Sevastopol.
In the early hours of May 7, Russia attacked Bakhmut with incendiary phosphorus weapons again. Ukraine’s military shared drone footage of what appeared to be fires in Bakhmut as white phosphorus rained down.
Explosions reported in Mykolaiv, Governor says there were 3 incoming aerial attacks in total. Around 1 a.m. Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaly Kim said that he would "not write details," but that there had been no emergency calls, adding that "either the air defenses had worked" or the attacks had not caused any casualties.
Ukrainian Defense Forces are gradually moving towards the destruction of the enemy's rear facilities across the operational zone, preparing favorable conditions for the start of a counteroffensive. Russian forces have mostly halted their offensive operations on the entire theater of military operations, which likely indicates a transition to a defensive posture. Resource accumulation, primarily ammunition and fuel, is ongoing.
WaPo: “The expectation from our counteroffensive campaign is overestimated in the world,” Oleksei Reznikov said this past week. “Most people are … waiting for something huge,” he added, which he fears may lead to “emotional disappointment.”
Activists of the civil movement against the occupation “Yellow Ribbon” created a map of the placement of enemy video cameras in the temporarily occupied territories. The movement calls on TOT residents to add new camers to the map in real time through the “Together” chatbot. Not only does the map help keep activists safe, but it also provides more accurate information about where the most cameras are in the city, which in turn helps ensure more accurate and efficient operations.
Evacuations from the frontline around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have prompted safety warnings from the UN nuclear watchdog, as a string of recent strikes escalate predictions of a looming spring counteroffensive. “The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” the IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, said in a statement on Saturday.
Russian state media reports forest fire near gunpowder storage facility. A forest fire reportedly threatens 18 warehouses, including a gunpowder storage facility, near the village of Pervomaiskyi in Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian state media TASS said on May 6.
CDS Daily Brief: The pace of enemy advancement in the Bakhmut area has significantly slowed down. The actions of the Wagner PMC, which is attempting to attack the Defense Forces, are notable in this context. The Russians have not rotated or replaced their troops in the Bakhmut area. They maintain a high intensity of artillery shelling in the selected areas of concentration of forces.
The Russian forces are creating a supply strip along the Kakhovka reservoir, which is 20-40 km deep, displacing the local civilian population.
Russia adds 4 Kalibr cruise missile carriers in Black Sea. Russia added four Kalibr cruise missile carriers in the Black Sea, bringing the total number of Kalibrs to 32, Ukraine's Southern Command reported in a Facebook post.
Frontex suspends patrolling Black Sea over incident with Russian fighter jet. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, temporarily suspended its patrol mission over the Black Sea following the incident with the Russian fighter jet on May 5. The Polish L410 Turbolet plane was intercepted during its routine patrol mission by a Russian fighter Sukhoi Su-35 around 60 kilometers east of Romanian airspace on May 5.
The Georgian authorities have closed the passage for cars at the Kazbegi-Upper Lars customs checkpoint on May 5. The border crossing through Upper Lars became one of the most popular in the period after the announcement of mobilization in Russia. Georgia remained one of the few countries where it was possible to get through the land border from Russia. Passage through the border with Russia will be limited for a month, the Georgian Finance Ministry said. Passenger cars will be able to cross the border with delays through checkpoints intended for trucks.
National Resistance Center: Russian servicemen stationed in Bryansk and Kursk regions received Ukrainian military uniforms. All these actions indicate that the Russians are preparing a provocation under a foreign flag in order to mobilize their society and also to mislead the world society in order to divert attention from the crimes of the Russian Federation. Terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation, or an imitation of hostage-taking, are not excluded.
Mayor: Traffic jam between Russian-occupied Melitopol and Crimea due to evacuation. A huge queue of cars and trucks, with some waiting for five hours, could be seen obstructing the Chonhar checkpoint between Russian-occupied Melitopol and Crimea, exiled Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov said on May 6.
Anakonda-23 NATO military exercises begin in Poland. Roughly 13,000 Polish servicemen are reportedly taking part in the joint exercise between Poland and NATO Allies, taking place in southeastern Poland, with military drills kicking off on May 6, Polskie Radio reported.
Bloomberg: NATO is stepping up monitoring of submarines after the defense alliance warned that Moscow is mapping EU and US critical underwater assets. In the course of ongoing 12-Nation exercises, NATO countries are working out measures to track down boats, including to prevent their possible attacks on underwater infrastructure, such as cables and gas pipelines. That Russia "may target submarine cables" was announced this week by NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security David Kuttler.
The Polish government has approved draft legislation that would allow the military to sink an enemy ship targeting a key gas pipeline from Norway via the Baltic Sea following NATO's warning that Russia might sabotage undersea energy infrastructure.
The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly investigating the crypto giant Binance over possible violations of the Russian sanctions, Bloomberg reported. Binance may have been involved in the cryptocurrency exchange schemes that allowed Russians to transfer money, circumventing restrictions imposed on the country's financial institutions.
Prigozhin drama
On 5 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner commander, wrote a letter to the Russian Defence Ministry, stating that he would withdraw his mercenaries from Bakhmut after 10 May. Kadyrov stepped in and offered to take over Wagner’s positions in Bakhmut with his troops.
Later, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov offered his help in the occupation of Bakhmut.
Prigozhin announced that he would allegedly hand over the positions of his fighters in Bakhmut to Kadyrov's soldiers.
Kadyrov has said that his soldiers from the "Akhmat" unit were ostensibly ready to move to the city of Bakhmut. Kadyrov stated that he allegedly signed a letter to Putin, confirming the readiness of his criminals to move to Bakhmut "to reclaim the city and cleanse it of NATO and Ukrainian Satanists."
Prigozhin’s press service released this statement in the late morning, May 7:
"They promise to give us ammunition and weapons, as much as we need to continue further operations.
They swear to us that everything necessary will be put on our flank so that we are not cut off by the enemy.
They tell us that we can act in Artemivsk [Bakhmut – ed.] as we see fit.
And they give us [Sergei] Surovikin (former commander of Russian forces in Ukraine – ed.) as a person who will make all decisions within the combat operations of the Wagner PMC in cooperation with the Defence Ministry."
Who is Zakhar Prilepin?
Zakhar Prilepin is a well-known controversial Russian figure with far-right national Bolshevik views and co-founder (along with Navalny) of the national democratic movement "People" as reported by CDS Daily Brief.
As an outspoken pro-war figure on social media, he has been spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda through Telegram and YouTube channels with more than half of million subscribers.
In a YouTube interview four years ago, he proudly confessed that a unit in Donbas he was in charge of "killed people in big numbers."
Patrick Tucker, Without A New Draft, Russian Offensive Operations Are Over, US Intel Chiefs Say—Defence One
Russian efforts to seize more Ukrainian territory are likely doomed unless the Kremlin manages to launch another draft, U.S. intelligence chiefs told lawmakers on Thursday, adding that Russia’s ground forces will in any case need years to rebuild.
“If Russia does not initiate a mandatory mobilization and secure substantial third-party ammunition supplies beyond existing deliveries, from Iran and others, it will be increasingly challenging for them to sustain even modest offensive operations,” Avril Haines, who heads the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or ODNI, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. [continue reading]
Inauthentic online behaviour in Georgia
To sum up, the network linked with the StratCom Department of the Georgian government was covertly promoting Russian style "foreign agents law" that was meant to target the Western support and activities in Georgia.
The details:
"The people behind this activity relied on fake accounts to run fictitious personas, manage Groups and Pages, post, comment, and like their own content to make it appear more popular than it was."They "purported to be local, independent, pro-government grassroots groups. The network operated around the clock to amplify content in support of the current Georgian government, including resharing posts by the official government Pages and pro-government media reports."
"They also shared criticisms of the opposition, particularly during the most recent public protests related to the now-retracted legislative proposal on the so-called “foreign agents” law in Georgia. In fact, this operation responded to protest developments in real time."
"Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to the Strategic Communications Department of the Government Administration of Georgia."
The network spent about $33,500 for ads on Facebook and Instagram, paid for mostly in US dollars.
Source: Ben Nimmo, Meta’s Adversarial Threat Report, First Quarter 2023
‘They teach them to hate their parents’ How the Russian authorities forcibly deport and ‘re-educate’ Ukrainian children
By Valentyn Ogirenko, Meduza, May 4, 2023
Occupation authorities in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions have frequently offered families free “vacation” vouchers for their children. According to Ukrainska Pravda, many residents have accepted these offers. Children with parents are usually taken to recreational camps or special schools in Russia or in Ukraine’s annexed territories, while orphans are usually sent to boarding schools or medical institutions.
According to human rights workers, after children are separated from their families, they’re immersed in messages like “You don’t need parents” and “You have no future in Ukraine.” “They say that Ukraine has abandoned [the children]. They teach them to hate their parents, and then [to hate] our country, and then to love Russia,” said Miroslava Kharchenko, a lawyer for the Save Ukraine project, which facilitates the return of deported children to Ukraine.
“Every morning, they played the Russian national anthem, and we had to stand for it. Anyone who didn’t stand had to give a written explanation. They also told us from the start that we weren’t allowed to talk about Ukraine,” said Ekaterina, a 13-year-old from Kherson who asked her parents to let her go to a camp in Yevpatoria. She was initially told she would spend just two weeks there, but the authorities refused to let her go back to her parents after the Russian military fled Kherson.
Incredible pictures…
May 8: E-Stories