In today's summary:
- The Ukrainian military announces an advance to a depth of up to 2.6 km on the southern flank of the storming Bakhmut group;
- Z-propagandists explain the retreat of units of the 72nd brigade near Bakhmut with "mull from all sides";
- Yevgeny Prigozhin offered to guess who he means by "happy grandfather" who "may turn out to be an asshole";
- Military expert Alexander Kovalenko talks about how Prigozhin manipulates the topic of ammunition shortages;
- The Rybar Telegram channel writes about “the most massive use of drone strikers in history to protect the Russian Federation”;
- UAV strike at a training ground in the Voronezh region, 14 servicemen were injured;
- AFP correspondent Arman Solden was killed in shelling near Chasov Yar;
- Experts draw attention to the means of integrating Western air defense systems in the latest package of US military assistance to Ukraine.
The situation at the front
The Ukrainian military announced that they had defeated several units of the 72nd separate motorized rifle brigade of the RF Armed Forces near Bakhmut. As stated, “the 6th and 8th companies of this brigade [72 OMBR] were actually completely destroyed, brigade reconnaissance was defeated, a significant number of combat armored vehicles were destroyed, a significant number of prisoners were captured … Offensive operations were carried out in a strip 3 km wide and 2.6 km, the entire territory is completely liberated from the Russian occupation troops.
According to the Ukrainian side, in two days on the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut, fighters of the 3rd Specialized Brigade as part of the Azov tactical group liquidated 64 Russians, and 87 more were wounded. Among both categories, there are reportedly Wagner PMC mercenaries. Another five Russian servicemen were taken prisoner (the corresponding video was published).
The Deep State resource geolocated the battlefields on the southern flank of the Russian group storming Bakhmut. The fighting takes place west of Kleshcheevka. Judging by the video footage, a tank supported the attack from the Ukrainian side, and the Russians had a sufficient amount of equipment, although this did not help.
Propagandist Anastasia Kashevarova presented the Z-version of these events. In her opinion, the defeat of the 72nd brigade occurred due to inconsistency in actions. Wagner PMC mercenaries withdrew from the flank after breaking through elsewhere, and the 72nd brigade did not know this:
“Wagner, they say they tried to contact the 72nd, but they did not want to interact. 72nd says that no one came out to them. The 72nd ban on working with the "orchestra" from the Moscow Region, and Wagner are too proud. Fuck crawl through the jungle of whining …
Guys, what are we fighting for? Well, what kind of asshole from all sides? You can negotiate with each other at the front, because you are sitting there ass to ass! Although often the brigades do not even know who is on their left and who is on the right, and whether the rear is covered.
According to Kashevarova, due to the current situation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to advance 3 km. In addition, she reports absolutely egregious facts of disorganization and lack of unity of command:
“Some say: “Oh, but we haven’t seen the battalions of the LPR and DPR for a long time – do they fight at all? Ha-ha." Battalions of the LPR and DPR: “Where are all your RF Armed Forces?”. One brigade: "Wagner's tank was stolen from us." Wagner: "They crushed our loaf." Armed Forces of the Russian Federation: "Akhmat was not there at all, only we." Then Kadyrov and Prigozhin injected each other. Riflemen throws shit on everyone. The military police squeeze out humanitarian aid, customs does not let drones through. By the way, the DPR and LPR battalions are also at odds with each other. All against all.
There is no single command that would be respected by all without exception. It is very necessary, a huge number of people at the front, and the forces cannot agree with each other. Complete disunity of the front. The enemy is using it."
The 72nd separate motorized rifle brigade, as ISW analysts reported , was formed in the summer of 2022 at the Totskoye training ground in the Orenburg region from “volunteer battalions”, which were then created in the Russian regions. The brigade became part of the 3rd Army Corps and took part in the battles in the Kherson direction, as well as in the unsuccessful attack on Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. Not later than the beginning of April, units of the 72nd Motorized Brigade were transferred to Bakhmut (probably in connection with the transfer of the Wagner PMC flanks to the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense), and one of the brigade servicemen was mistaken for a Ukrainian spy by the Wagnerites and tortured .
A video with the Holy Annunciation Church burning in Bakhmut is circulating on social networks.
Yevgeny Prigozhin continues to complain about the shortage of shells, and casually explained who he meant by "happy grandfather" who "may turn out to be an asshole" in a video posted on May 9. The question was asked by the Russian propaganda channel RTVI.
Prigogine offered a choice of three options:
- The former Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, "who was fired for giving us shells, and now he cannot give us shells." In early May, Mizintsev was appointed deputy commander of Wagner PMC.
- Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, Commander of the Joint Grouping of Troops (Forces) in Ukraine, “who should give us shells, but we do not receive enough shells, and we receive only 10%.”
- Former participant of the show "Dom-2" Natalya Khim, "who appeared on social networks offering us boxes of shells."
In addition, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that his mercenaries were still not supplied with shells "in sufficient quantities", although "the country's leadership issued a command to consider all applications [from the Wagner PMC]." He also complained about the "information campaigns" allegedly being waged against him and said that Natalya Khim had taken several boxes of shells to the front. Back on May 5, a video appeared in one of the pro-Wagner Telegram channels, where Khim says that she managed to get shells “thanks to caring people.” The former participant of the Dom-2 project joined the ranks of the power structures of the DPR back in 2015.
As military expert Alexander Kovalenko noted in an interview with The Insider, when Prigozhin claims a shortage of ammunition, he is right to some extent, but in terms of Bakhmut, he manipulates information:
“A shortage of ammunition among the Russian troops has been observed in almost the entire combat zone and in all units since mid-2022 and is on the rise. Since mid-2022, Russia has seen a steady decrease in the average number of attacks per day. If in March-April 2022 the average number of rounds fired by the Russian army was 70-80 thousand rounds per day with different types of ammunition, then by November 2022 this figure was 20-25 thousand rounds per day, and now there are already 15 thousand rounds along the entire line of contact . The problem with ammunition is obvious and acute. The Russian command has no opportunity to solve it promptly. If we are talking about Bakhmut, then, unlike other locations, there is the largest concentration of Russian artillery and ammunition supply, i.e. on the one hand, he tells the truth, but on the other hand, he frankly manipulates information.”
Kovalenko also appreciated the counterattack of the 3rd Specialized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the position of the 72nd Motorized Brigade:
“As for the flight of the 72nd [SMRB], this is the result of the systematic counterattacks carried out by the Ukrainian defense forces. Gradually, from a maneuverable type of defense, the Ukrainian defense forces in March [began the transition] to building up a counteroffensive. And this systematic counterattack is beginning to give its first results, one of which was the pushback of units of the Russian occupation forces in the northern and southern sectors, especially southwest of Bakhmut through Ivanovskoye in the area of the canal ["Seversky Donets – Donbass"]. For several months, landing troops fought for this canal to force it from the left bank to the right, and now they have been thrown back and the Ukrainian defense forces have returned a number of positions on the left bank of the canal to their control. This is a tangible blow, but it cannot be said that it is a harbinger of something bigger and that some kind of tipping point is coming. So far, this is the first sign of the interception of the initiative at a single location, but if the problem with personnel, replenishment of losses, strengthening of the flanks, and so on, is not resolved in the near future, then such a systematic counterattack will give more and more results.
Mutual shelling and sabotage
The Rybar Telegram channel writes about “the most massive use of drone strikers in history to protect the Russian Federation.” According to the channel, in total, by 22:50 Moscow time on May 9, over a hundred drones were suppressed in Russia by means of electronic warfare or shot down, and several dozen drones were launched from Russian territory, including aircraft-type drones. At least three Ukrainian UJ-22 Airborne UAVs tried to attack Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke (at a closed meeting) about the incident with the drone attack on the Kremlin.
He was quoted by the journalist of the Kremlin pool from Kommersant Andrei Kolesnikov. According to Kolesnikov, Putin said that there was nothing special about this UAV, it was “made of wire and modern materials, such home-made drones flew to the Khmeimim base in Syria, so they are familiar, and that it was only, I think, 400 g of TNT.
In the Voronezh region, 14 servicemen were injured in a drone attack. On the night of May 10, two drones attacked a military training ground and exploded as they fell. Later, the governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, stated that "as a result of measures of influence, one of them deviated from the course and fell, the second was destroyed by fire."
Earlier, another case was reported in the region – a few minutes before the start of the parade in Moscow, air defense shot down an unidentified missile near the Baltimore military airfield. Rocket fragments were found in the evening in a forest belt in the Left Bank district of Voronezh.
Two drones were intercepted in the Kaluga region, near the village of Mekhovo. According to "military officer" Yuri Kotenok, one of the devices deviated and fell as a result of (apparently, electronic) "measures", and the second was destroyed by fire.
FSB officers detained a company of five teenagers suspected of plotting a terrorist act in a military unit in Balashikha. According to investigators, the detainees were allegedly going to dig and get into the territory of the military unit. Baza reports that the detainees are from 15 to 20 years old, they are residents of the Moscow region and Moscow. The investigation names 19-year-old Anton Khripko and 20-year-old Sergei Korkhov as the organizers of the group.
Details have appeared on the incident with the Su-24 front-line bomber allegedly burned by representatives of the pro-Ukrainian “Legion “Freedom of Russia”” in Novosibirsk on the territory of the Chkalov aircraft plant. According to the Telegram channel Baza, law enforcement officers learned about the arson from social networks. While inspecting the territory of the Novosibirsk Aviation Plant, the police actually found a Su-24 with signs of arson.
The description for the video posted by the Legion stated that the plane was completely destroyed. But, according to pro-Russian channels, the decommissioned bomber was almost not injured. Now the security forces are looking for suspects in arson – unknown people got into the territory of the plant, having a bite of a chain-link mesh, they found a hole in the fence with a diameter of about a meter.
Russian Telegram channels report constant shelling of the Belgorod region. In Shebekino, residential buildings were hit: a man received severe shrapnel wounds and died in an ambulance. In total, since May 6, seven civilians have been injured in Shebekino and nearby villages, one person has died.
In addition, a kamikaze drone attacked the village of Olkhovatka, as a result of the explosion, residential buildings, the House of Culture, a car and a medical and obstetric station were damaged. On approaching the village of Spodaryushino, EW crews were able to suppress the work of the UAV, there were no casualties or destruction
The RF Armed Forces launched a missile attack on the territory of an industrial enterprise in Kupyansk, Kharkov region. Used OTRK "Iskander". There is no information about the victims.
The "LNR" said that a blow had been struck on Kadievka (Russian sources usually use the name "Stakhanov"). The published video shows that the top two floors of the high-rise building were destroyed.
The main blow was inflicted on the Donbass Hotel, in the surviving part of which the Russian military were located. As a result of the shelling, one woman was killed, three more people were injured.
The Pentagon officially confirmed that the Ukrainian crew of the American MIM-104 Patriot air defense system shot down the Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile in early May. The information was confirmed by Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder. The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the information about the "Dagger".
Paul Ronzheimer, a war correspondent for the German edition of Bild, published a video of the wreckage of a Russian missile shot down in Ukraine.
Earlier, the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Mykola Oleshchuk, said that on the night of May 4, a “Dagger” was shot down in the sky over the Kiev region for the first time. Before that, the Defense Express portal reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine shot down the “Dagger”, however, these allegations were denied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Insider noted in a previous report that Ukraine has Patriot systems, which, in the PAC-3 modification, are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.
The Telegram channel "Military Informant" suggests that the missile was shot down by the Patriot air defense system of the PAC-3 modification using the PAC-3 MSE kinetic interceptor missile. The transfer of complexes of this modification to Ukraine was not officially reported.
Losses
AFP correspondent Arman Solden was killed in the shelling near Chasov Yar. Solden, 32, was with four colleagues who were unharmed. They were in the location of the Ukrainian military. Arman's family has been notified. “His death is a terrible reminder of the risks and dangers that journalists face every day when covering the conflict in Ukraine,” said Fabrice Fries, CEO of AFP.
Armaments and military equipment
The first photos of Ukrainian Su-25 attack aircraft with suspended American unguided Zuni rockets have appeared.
Photos of the Swedish RBS-70 man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine have also been published.
A video of Russian vehicles recently filmed in the occupied territory showed vintage BTR-50 armored personnel carriers equipped with twin 23mm ZU-23-2 automatic anti-aircraft guns. Such installations are very often mounted on various military and civilian equipment in the course of handicraft refinement and are used for firing both at air targets (for example, at helicopters and drones) and at ground targets. The Insider covered in detail the appearance of the BTR-50 and other "grandfather" models of equipment in the ranks of Russian forces in Ukraine.
Military expert Ilya Kramnik drew attention to the details of the $1.2 billion US military aid package announced yesterday as part of the USAI program (we are not talking about immediate supplies from stock, but about long-term contracts). In particular, he writes that “the most interesting is the mention of the means of integrating Western complexes, radars and missiles into the air defense system of Ukraine … We can talk about the data exchange system as such, but theoretically it could be the integration of the American automated control system, for example, something then type IBCS. Both are among the things that are not visible in a head-on comparison of military potentials in terms of numbers, but their presence plays the greater role, the more complex the weapon system is in question.
About the main events of the war on May 9 – in the previous report: “The battle between Prigozhin and Shoigu, attacks on Ukraine, only one tank was shown at the parade in Moscow. What's happening on the front line .