In today's summary:
- According to the latest available estimates, the "Wagnerites" captured 90% of Bakhmut;
- Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin arrived in Bakhmut and is already ready to restore it;
- According to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are ready for a counteroffensive;
- A massive rocket attack on Ukraine, in Uman, 23 people were killed, including four children;
- Russian military personnel are trying to pun with the help of inscriptions on the body of kamikaze drones of the "Geran" type;
- The second division of the Patriot air defense system was put on combat duty in Ukraine;
- Serhiy Prytula's Ukrainian Foundation purchased over 100 units of military and special equipment.
The situation at the front
Ukrainian forces are strengthening their positions in the Dnieper Delta. The Ukraine Battle Map project gives its assessment of the situation in the Kherson direction. According to the published map, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fully or partially control many islands in the river delta.
In this regard, we note that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are training small operational units capable of forcing water barriers on kayaks. The German publication Bild writes about this, analyzing plans for the upcoming counteroffensive of Ukraine. According to the newspaper, since January 2023, Ukraine has been purchasing special equipment and attracting experts for training, including from Germany.
Bild journalist Julian Röpke continues to map the advance of Russian forces in Bakhmut. According to him, 90% of the city is under their control, and if counterattacks are not organized within a few weeks, it will be completely lost.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister of the RF Government Marat Khusnullin, who is in charge of the construction, arrived in Bakhmut. Despite the ongoing fighting, Khusnullin is already going to rebuild the city.
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a whole are ready for a counteroffensive, the matter remains with the weather and the command. According to him, Abrams tanks will not have time to take part in the operation, but Ukraine already has a large number of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles of various types: Bradley, Marder, Stryker, CV 90.
Reznikov stressed that the equipment itself was prepared and partially delivered, but the Ukrainian military had not yet completed training on some types of weapons.
Mutual shelling
On the night of April 28, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine. One of the rockets hit an apartment building in the city of Uman. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, 23 people died, including four children.
The head of the department, Igor Klimenko, said that 109 people were registered in the entrance, which completely collapsed. 27 apartments were completely destroyed. More than 33 vehicles were also burned or damaged. Rescuers continue to dismantle the rubble.
According to one version , the target of the strike in Uman could be an airfield or the territory of an air regiment disbanded in the 2000s (military unit 62508).
Also, civilian casualties were recorded in the Dnieper. A private house was destroyed there, a 31-year-old woman and a 2-year-old child were killed.
At the same time, a post appeared on the official Telegram channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense with a characteristic picture and a definitely cynical, given the victims, the inscription "Right on target."
According to the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in total Russia fired 23 X-101/555 missiles in Ukraine, of which 21 were shot down.
X-101 missiles are in short supply in the arsenal of Russian aviation. Their production, including as a result of sanctions, is not massive. In addition, it is also an expensive missile compared to other weapons, so the question arises where the 23 missiles were sent and what targets they were supposed to hit, given that 90% of them were shot down, and those two that broke through the air defense does not appear to have been hit at a decision-making center or an important military installation.
As military expert Alexander Kovalenko noted in an interview with The Insider , judging by where the missiles hit, either the technical component or intelligence clearly failed:
“Preliminarily, we can say that the Russian command intended to use these missiles to strike targets that they consider important to themselves. Apparently, they considered them important from a strategic point of view, and if so, then either the technical component or the intelligence data clearly failed here, because objects that had nothing to do with the decision-making center were hit.
According to the remains of one of the rockets, it was recorded that it was produced in 2023. When I was asked about the accuracy of strikes with Russian missiles, I emphasized that they have a very big problem with accuracy. It happened that these missiles fell just during the flight on the territory of Russia due to engine failure.
There is another point – not so long ago, a Shahed-136 kamikaze drone raid was carried out in Odessa. Two raids were made with a frequency of two weeks, and the results of these raids also raise questions about which objects were hit. One of these facilities was a children's camp. This building was empty at that time, but this children's camp is located in Kovalevsky's dacha, surrounded by similar rest houses and camps that house refugee families from areas where active hostilities are taking place, and many in Odessa know about this.
Here one can pose the question – does the Russian command receive sufficiently high-quality intelligence information regarding the objects on which they should strike? These two questions arise – how effective are their missiles and do they receive sufficiently accurate intelligence information? Apparently, neither the first nor the second corresponds to an acceptable level.
Meanwhile, the Russian side reported that Donetsk had come under fire from the MLRS. According to "military officer" Yevgeny Poddubny, about 20 shells hit residential areas. One of them hit the minibus, which was completely burned down.
According to RIA Novosti, 9 people died, including one child. According to the latest data, 16 people were injured. Another shell hit the territory of the Olimpiyskiy stadium.
Ukrainian journalist and blogger Andriy Tsaplienko said that Russia shelled the center of Donetsk in order to divert attention from the killing of civilians during the rocket attack on Uman and the Dnieper and in order to accuse the Ukrainian Armed Forces of their own crimes.
Additional information has appeared on yesterday's incident in Donetsk, when four children were injured. As reported , the teenagers tried to push an unknown object off the road, which detonated, the version of the explosion on the Petal anti-personnel mine was not confirmed. One of the victims is in critical condition.
Up to five drones attacked an electrical substation in the village of Nezhegol, Belgorod Region. According to the SHOT Telegram channel, two of them were hit by an air defense system. “There are no casualties, the damage is minor,” the message posted on the channel says.
According to the same resource, the Armed Forces of Ukraine shelled the Bryansk region 8 times a night. Shells flew into the territory of school No. 2 in the village of Suzemka. The report clarifies that there was no one at the school, since the building has been under repair since March, so no one was hurt, although there is some damage in the village.
The pro-Russian Telegram channel “Two Majors” publishes photos of downed wooden drones that allegedly flew towards Mariupol.
Meanwhile, Russian servicemen continue to exercise wit by leaving or modifying inscriptions on the body of Geran-type kamikaze drones. A photo appeared on the network where the warning “DO NOT TAKE” was corrected to “DO NOT BROTHERS”.
Earlier in Ukraine, fragments of the Geran drone were found, on which the same inscription “DO NOT TAKE” was “corrected” to “WE THOUGHT I WOULD NOT TAKE YOU, BUT YOU DID ** SHARE”.
Losses
In the pro-Russian segment, Telegram is summing up the results of the use of Lancet kamikaze drones against Ukrainian air defense forces in the Kherson direction. True, even in the presentation of the Rybar channel associated with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, it turns out that out of the previously declared four destroyed launchers of the S-300 complex, two were actually destroyed, and two were damaged.
In addition, pro-Russian Telegram channels are distributing a full recording of the defeat of the Ukrainian ZSU Gepard by a kamikaze drone. Judging by the video, the installation did not receive catastrophic damage, therefore, it is still premature to count the first documented destruction of Gepard.
Ukrainian resources are distributing a video with the defeat of the Russian MT-LBM 6MB (Object 6MB) in the Donetsk region. This is a rather rare modification of the MT-LB, on which a combat module with a 30-mm automatic cannon is installed.
Armaments and military equipment
Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Mykola Oleshchuk published a picture against the background of the AN / MPQ-53 radar and wrote that the second division of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system received by Ukraine had taken up combat duty.
The first division of the Patriot air defense system was received by Ukraine from Germany (plus two launchers from the Netherlands), its entry into combat duty in Ukraine was officially announced on April 19.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine also received new Swedish-made Archer self-propelled artillery mounts (ACS), which are called the fastest in the world. The first shots of Archer appeared in service with the Ukrainian army.
The Serhiy Prytula Ukrainian Foundation reported that a total of 101 units of military and special equipment were purchased with donations:
- 40 armored personnel carriers FV103 Spartan;
- 21 armored personnel carriers FV105 Sultan;
- 2 ambulance armored vehicles FV104 Samaritan;
- 3 armored recovery vehicles FV106 Samson;
- 2 armored recovery vehicles FV434;
- 24 armored personnel carriers FV432;
- 8 armored personnel carriers Alvis Stormer;
- 1 Shielder armored minelayer.
The total cost of the purchased equipment is £5.3 million.
The developers of the game STALKER, together with the Ukrainian team of esportsmen NAVI, have purchased 100 Volkswagen minibuses for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Some of them were handed over to the Da Vinci Wolves unit and the 41st Brigade.
Defense Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov said that Denmark had transferred all 19 CAESAR self-propelled guns to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius spoke about the start of training Ukrainian troops on Leopard 1 tanks. 80 tanks of this type will begin to be transferred to Ukraine from mid-2023.
The Russian forces were allegedly armed with Iranian Dehlaviyeh ATGM missiles, copies of the Russian Kornet-EM ATGM.
As the Military Informant Telegram channel notes , it is still not known for certain whether Iran is directly supplying these anti-tank systems to Russia or whether they fell into the hands of Russian military personnel as trophies, and earlier they were handed over to the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Iranian ships intercepted by the American fleet with arms shipments for Yemen.
About the main events of the war on April 27 – in the previous report: “ Reshuffles in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in Moscow, are preparing for the arrival of Ukrainian UAVs on Red Square on May 9. What's happening on the front lines ."