The White House has estimated that Russia’s military has suffered 100,000 casualties in the last five months in fighting against Ukraine in the Bakhmut region. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the figure, based on US intelligence estimates, included more than 20,000 dead, half of them from the Wagner group, Reuters reported.
An explosion in the western region of Bryansk bordering Ukraine derailed a Russian freight train on Monday, the local governor said in a social media post. “An unidentified explosive device went off, as a result of which a locomotive of a freight train derailed,” Bryansk governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram, adding that there were no casualties reported. Local authorities said that the derailed train was transporting “fuel and building materials.”
Russian missiles have struck warehouses reportedly storing ammunition at a railway depot in the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, in an apparent effort to slow Kyiv’s preparations for its much anticipated counteroffensive expected to start shortly. 34 people, including five children, were reported to be injured in the attack. Two women are said to be in intensive care.
In today’s attack on Pavlohrad, in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, seven missiles were fired at the city, Serhii Lysak, the region’s top official, said. “Some were intercepted” but others hit an industrial facility, sparking a fire, and a residential neighbourhood where 19 apartment buildings, 25 homes, six schools and five shops were damaged, he said. Missiles also hit three other areas in the region, damaging residential buildings and a school, he said.
Video posted on social media showed secondary detonations amid a significant blaze at the site of the strike, which came amid overnight missile launches against a number of Ukrainian cities by Russian strategic bombers. Among the buildings damaged or destroyed were an industrial zone, 19 apartment buildings and 25 homes, according to Mykola Lukashuk, the head of the Dnipro region council.
The Ukrainian military reported that air defence crews had destroyed 15 out of 18 missiles launched by Russian forces in the early hours of Monday morning with air raids sirens and air defence batteries audible in Kyiv and across the country.
Ukrainian counterattacks have ousted Russian forces from some positions in the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut, but the situation remains “difficult”, a top Ukrainian general has said. “The situation is quite difficult,” said Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of ground forces. “At the same time, in certain parts of the city, the enemy was counterattacked by our units and left some positions”. Syrskyi made the remarks while visiting frontline troops on Sunday, the military said.
The head of the Wagner private militia renewed his appeal to Russia’s defence ministry to increase ammunition shipments to his fighters trying to seize the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin has frequently clashed with Moscow’s defence establishment over the conduct of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine and what he says is insufficient support being provided to his Wagner soldiers. In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said he needs at least 300 tonnes of artillery shells a day for the assault, Reuters reported.
One person was killed and three others were injured by Russian shelling in the Kherson region over the past 24 hours, the region’s administration said.
The governor of Chernihiv, Viacheslav Chaus, has reported the death of a child in Novhorod-Siverskyi after a mid-afternoon strike on the region.
Russian media reported on Monday what looks like two separate overnight incidents of sabotage within the Russian Federation. Alexander Bogomaz, governor of Bryansk, said a freight train was derailed as a result of an explosive device blowing up on railway tracks in the region. Aleksandr Drozdenko, governor of Leningrad region, claimed that a power transmission line support was blown up there. He wrote that an explosive device was also found on a second power pylon, but that electricity supplies had not been disrupted. Authorities in Russia say they are investigating both incidents.
Since last summer Russia has built “some of the most extensive systems of military defensive works seen anywhere in the world for many decades” in the areas it controls in Ukraine as well as in its own border regions, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has written in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
Vladimir Rogov, chair of the We Are Together with Russia organisation that operates within the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, has posted to Telegram to claim that a man has been killed by his own improvised explosives in occupied Melitopol.
Poland’s ministry of foreign affairs has issued a statement condemning the former children’s ombudsman of Russia, Pavel Astakhov, for comments he made on Russian state TV that murdering ambassadors is “within the framework of international law”, with specific reference to Poland’s ambassador. Poland called on Russia “to ensure the safety of all diplomats in accordance with the Vienna Convention”.
In Washington, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy emphatically stressed his support for military aid to Ukraine on Monday, blistering Russia’s “killing of the children” and distancing himself from some in his party who oppose additional major US aid to stave off the Russian invasion. In Israel on his first trip abroad as speaker, McCarthy flatly rejected a suggestion at a news conference that he does not support sending military and financial aid to Ukraine – and he amplified his positions on other issues back home, including his demand for debt limit negotiations with President Joe Biden.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken to New Zealand’s prime minister, Chris Hipkins. Ukraine’s president said the pair discussed “further cooperation on defence and humanitarian issues” and “the need for further consolidation of the countries of the Pacific region in supporting Ukraine.”
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has warned that an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive could turn into a “tragedy” for Russia, and complained that his fighters lacked ammunition, in an interview with pro-Kremlin war correspondent Semyon Pegov. Prigozhin, whose group is spearheading Russia’s attack on the embattled city of Bakhmut, predicted a Ukrainian counterattack in mid-May and said Wagner had “only 10-15% of the shells that we need.”
Pope Francis has said that the Vatican is involved in a peace mission to try to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “I am willing to do everything that has to be done. There is a mission in course now but it is not yet public. When it is public, I will reveal it,” Pope Francis told reporters during a flight home after a three-day visit to Hungary.
The Russian army replaced its highest ranking general in charge of logistics, after days of rumours about the sacking of Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev. In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said Alexei Kuzmenkov – a former official from the National Guard – had replaced Mizintsev as “deputy defence minister of the Russian Federation, responsible for the logistical support of the Armed Forces.” The statement did not say why Mizintsev was replaced after just seven months in the job.
Four people have been killed from an overnight Ukrainian strike on the Russian border village of Suzemka, the governor of Russia’s western Bryansk region said on Sunday. “Two more civilians have been found and removed from the rubble. Unfortunately, both of them died,” local governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram.
With Reuters and AFP
