Bakhmut map. Source: MilitaryLand
In today's summary:
- Ukrainian troops are advancing on the flanks around Bakhmut, and PMC Wagner is in the city itself;
- A complex attack on Kyiv simultaneously with kamikaze drones, cruise and aeroballistic missiles;
- The Ukrainian side claims that during the night attack it shot down six Russian Kinzhal missiles at once;
- The Russian Ministry of Defense claims that the "Dagger" hit the American Patriot air defense system, in the US they say that it is "damaged";
- Reports of drone attacks from the Kursk, Bryansk, Belgorod and Smolensk regions;
- The first confirmation of the death of a serviceman appeared on May 13, when the Russian Aerospace Forces lost four aircraft at once over the Bryansk region;
- France will give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles, and the UK – hundreds of kamikaze drones;
- The Pentagon confirmed the arrival in Germany of 31 Abrams tanks intended for the Armed Forces of Ukraine;
- A battery of SAMP-T anti-aircraft missile systems was delivered to Ukraine;
- The head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov spoke about the growth in the production of military equipment in Russia.
The situation at the front
The representative of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhiy Cherevaty, said that over the past two days, Ukrainian forces have advanced on the flanks in the Bakhmut area at a distance of 350 meters to 2 kilometers. “When it becomes possible to attack the enemy on the flanks, then this is all done. And this is within the framework of a defense operation that has been going on for many months. An operation aimed at exhausting the enemy,” Cherevaty explained.
According to him, the Russian forces are putting up "wild resistance" – in the last 24 hours alone, the Russians have lost 149 people killed and 160 wounded, and six more people were captured.
The Ukrainian OSINT resource DeepState geolocated the attack of the 225th separate battalion of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine north of Bakhmut in the Orekhovo-Vasylivka area. It is alleged that the battalion "broke" units of PMC "Veterans".
In the city itself, DeepState geolocated an artillery strike against Wagner PMC forces in one of the buildings on the western outskirts. The resource map shows a significant advancement of the "Wagnerites" in urban areas.
The WarGonzo project of “military officer” Semyon Pegov in the “front report” writes about the retreat of Russian troops towards Kleshcheevka on the southern flank and the exit of the “Wagnerites” to the intersection of Levanevsky and Yubileynaya streets in Bakhmut (consistent with DeepState geolocation).
The “military commander” Alexander Simonov, associated with the PMC Wagner, publishes a report on the night battles in Bakhmut , in which Yevgeny Prigozhin shows the corpse of a murdered American volunteer and shows on the map which part of the city is held by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. If Prigozhin is to be believed, Ukrainians remain only in the westernmost quarter of the city, which Russian sources usually refer to as Domino .
Mutual shelling and sabotage
On the night of May 15-16 , Kiev was subjected to the eighth long-range strike since the beginning of May. According to the Kyiv city military administration, the attack took place simultaneously from different directions using drones, cruise missiles and, probably, ballistic missiles in a short period of time. Foreign correspondents in Kiev reported on the extremely intensive work of air defense (as it sounded to the people of Kiev, you can listen, for example, here ). Debris from downed missiles and drones damaged buildings and cars in several districts of the Ukrainian capital, injuring three people .
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said rocket fragments fell on the territory of the zoo and damaged green spaces. None of the zoo staff and animals were hurt.
According to the Command of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a total of 18 air, sea and ground-based missiles were fired across Ukraine : six Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles from MiG-31K fighters, nine Kalibr cruise missiles from ships from the Black Sea and three anti-aircraft or ballistic missiles missiles (S-400 or Iskander-M).
All missiles are said to have been shot down. It is also reported about the interception of six kamikaze drones of the Shahed family (aka Geran) and three reconnaissance drones Orlan-10 and Supercam.
Later, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine clarified that on the night of May 16, the Ukrainian air defense forces also shot down 10 ballistic missiles (S-400 and Iskander-M).
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov noted that in total, the Ukrainians have already shot down seven “Daggers” out of 80 available, and thus Russia has 73 units left. Note that according to the statistics that Reznikov published in early January 2023, there were 53 Kinzhal missiles in the reserves of the Russian Federation. Based on these data, in the first four months of 2023, Russia managed to produce 27 missiles of this type.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in turn, claims that during the attack, the “Dagger” missile system “hit” the Patriot air defense system. Pro-Russian Telegram channels publish a video of a possible arrival at the position of the air defense system.
An unnamed U.S. official told CNN that the Patriot system (possibly referring to one of its elements, such as a launcher, radar station, or command post) was likely damaged but not destroyed, and the United States is currently conducting damage assessment to determine whether it needs to be evacuated outside of Ukraine or repairs can be carried out on site by Ukrainian specialists.
Twitter account OSINTtechnical draws attention to a photo of a rocket fragment at a public transport stop in Kiev . According to the author of the account, it corresponds to the skin element of the Kinzhal missile.
Also in Kiev, fragments of PAC-3 CRI interceptor missiles of the Patriot PAC-3 complex were noticed . On the one hand, this confirms that Ukraine was supplied with the latest modification of the Patriot complexes, which reflected the nighttime rocket fire. On the other hand, the PAC-3 CRI are not the latest missiles of this complex (the most modern are the PAC-3 MSE, the mass production of which only began in 2018).
Analyst Konrad Muzyka, in analyzing recent Russian rocket attacks on Ukraine, notes that although they occur much more often than in autumn and winter, far fewer rockets are used in each of these attacks, which does not allow them to achieve significant results.
The video of the shelling of residential areas of Kherson with incendiary ammunition, which spread last night, turned out to be filmed a few days earlier, on May 12, in the Korabel microdistrict . At the same time, on the night of May 16, the city was also shelled.
In the village of Glushkovo in the Kursk region , with the help of a UAV, three ammunition was dropped onto the territory of the administrative building of the border guard department of the FSB. Five border guards were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds. The attack took place on May 15 around 23:00.
On the evening of May 16, in the Sudzhansky district in the Kursk region, border guards shot down two Ukrainian kamikaze drones.
In Klintsy in the Bryansk region, an aircraft-type drone was shot down. Governor Alexander Bogomaz said that as a result, the balcony of a residential building was damaged, no one was injured.
Russian Telegram channels claim that the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired on the Nizhnie Melnitsy farm in the Belgorod region with 122 mm incendiary ammunition. It is noted that the shelling was carried out from Grad multiple launch rocket systems from the territory of the village of Kamenka, Kupyansky district, Kharkiv region .
A drone with two cameras and an antenna fell on the territory of a sanatorium of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Smolensk region . Acting governor of the region Vasily Anokhin stated that it was "an ordinary civilian quadrocopter".
The SHOT Telegram channel, citing its own source, reported that a home-made ammunition was found near the Energy Oil gas station in the Kursk region , which is an aluminum pipe with a diameter of 0.5 meters, stuffed with striking elements in the form of stars.
Vladimir Rogov, a member of the occupation administration of the Zaporozhye region , said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a missile attack on the village of Berestovoye, Berdyansk region , as a result of which a fire started on the territory of the elevator.
Losses
Discussion continues on the loss in one day in the sky over the Bryansk region of four aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces: two Mi-8 helicopters, a Su-34 fighter-bomber and a Su-35S fighter.
The well-known Z-channel "Older than Edda" sets out a version with the defeat of Russian helicopters and aircraft by a fire platoon of the NASAMS air defense system. In the Helicopterpilot Telegram channel associated with Russian helicopter aviation, it is suggested that the Mi-8 helicopters, which were assigned electronic warfare during the air group's combat mission, were first hit by AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles.
Note that visual confirmations are so far known only for two sides – one of the Mi-8 and Su-34.
In the meantime, the first confirmation of the death of a serviceman from the crews of the lost helicopters and planes appeared in open sources. We are talking about the senior on-board equipment instructor Mi-8 Maxim Savchenko, who served in the city of Ostrov, Pskov region (the 15th brigade of army aviation is stationed there).
A well-known Ukrainian Telegram channel Eskadron has posted a screenshot of a recording from an FPV drone, presumably before the defeat of the Russian Msta-S self-propelled artillery mount. This may mean that Ukrainian operators of FPV drones have begun to hit targets much farther from the line of contact – earlier in the material of the Novorossiya Aid Coordination Center it was said that the practical range of homemade kamikaze drones does not exceed 2 km, and self-propelled guns usually do not advance so close to enemy positions.
In the Telegram channel "Thirteenth." (conducted on behalf of a serviceman of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) a photo of the flooded position of Russian troops on the left bank of the Dnieper appeared. The day before, the same channel reported that due to the rise in the water level downstream from the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, a dugout was flooded, in which a serviceman died.
Armaments and military equipment
France, following the UK, will hand over long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine. Probably, we are talking about SCALP-EG (the French name for the already transmitted Storm Shadow). President Emmanuel Macron said that the additional assistance that Paris will provide also includes AMX-10 wheeled cannon reconnaissance fire vehicles and ammunition.
Ukrainians want to receive up to 50 F-16 fighter jets from the West, Politico writes , citing Yuriy Sak, adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister. According to him, Ukraine's need for modern fighters has increased even more since in March the Russian Air Force began to widely use guided glide bombs capable of hitting targets at long distances. Sak stressed that Ukrainians "have nothing to stop" Russian planes that launch such bombs.
Kyiv has long been seeking the supply of fighter jets from its allies, and this topic was discussed again on May 15 during the visit of Volodymyr Zelensky to the UK, where he met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The latter made it clear that he supports the idea of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine and will raise this topic at the upcoming G7 summit.
The Telegraph writes that the UK will give Ukraine several hundred custom-made kamikaze drones with a range of more than 200 km. The sources of the newspaper said that these are inexpensive drones, the main task of which is to “carry ammunition”. “They have an effect comparable to an artillery shell,” said one of the interlocutors of the publication.
The Pentagon confirmed the arrival of 31 Abrams tanks at the German Grafenwehr test site to train Ukrainian crews, including technical personnel who will be trained to maintain these vehicles and keep them in working order. Ukrainians will arrive in Germany and begin training in the coming weeks. In the future, these tanks will be converted to participate in hostilities and will be transported to Ukraine in the fall.
The Italian press reports that a battery of SAMP-T anti-aircraft missile systems has been delivered to Ukraine. The delivery, announced in February, was carried out jointly by Italy and France. SAMP-T is designed to protect against cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles, manned and unmanned aerial vehicles. The system is capable of destroying aircraft at a distance of 3 km to 100 km and ballistic missiles at a distance of 3 km to 25 km; the height of the defeat is up to 25 km.
Also in Ukraine, the Romanian 152-mm howitzer M1981, a licensed copy of the Soviet D-20 developed in 1947, was caught on video (the supply of these guns was not officially reported). The Russian side has been actively using D-20 howitzers since 2022 (initially they entered service with the army corps of the “republics” of Donbass).
Since August last year, Iran has supplied Russia with more than 400 UAVs, mostly of the Shahed type, said John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. According to the US, Moscow has already used up most of these drones, but expects to buy more.
Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov told the TASS agency about the achievements of the Russian defense industry. According to him, the volume of deliveries of tanks and armored vehicles for the first quarter of 2023 is comparable to the total volume delivered for the whole of 2022, and the production and supply of weapons increased by more than 7 times.
The TV channel of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation "Zvezda" showed a new handicraft solution in the field of advanced weapons – this time 2B9 "Vasilek" mortars mounted on MT-LB. Considering that the mass of the mortar is more than half a ton, the operators of such systems often seek to increase their mobility – there are cases of installation of "Cornflowers" on trucks both in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in parts of the so-called. "People's Militia of the DPR ".
Previously, we talked about the MT-LB version with machine guns taken from torpedo boats, the Soviet artillery tractor ATS-59G with the 2M-3M naval gun mounted on it, and the MT-LB with the same 2M-3M gun .
About the main events of the war on May 15 – in the previous report: “A black day for Russian aviation, the Ukrainians are advancing near Bakhmut, they are hitting Luhansk with Storm Shadow missiles. What's happening on the front line .