The Russians are increasingly shelling the Kherson region and taking civilians from the Zaporizhzhia region. A part of Bakhmut holds on. The situation at the front on the 440th day of the full-scale war — with maps

Ukraine continues to prepare for a counteroffensive — it is learning to use Western equipment, training new fighters and waiting for favorable weather. Western media are trying to analyze and guess where exactly it will start and what the consequences will be. In the last two months, Ukraineʼs counteroffensive remains the main topic of all Western publications. Journalists believe that expectations may be overstated, and Ukraine will not be able to achieve very serious successes. Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov also says this. The Washington Post wrote that the Ukrainian leadership fears that the counteroffensive will not live up to the expectations of its Western partners. Further military aid to the West will depend on this, so Ukrainians are trying to lower the level of expectations.

The conflict between the Ministry of Defense of Russia and the owner of Wagnerʼs PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin has reached its peak. On the night of May 5, Prigozhin published a video against the background of the murdered "Wagnerians", in which he scolded Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov for lack of ammunition. The next day, Prigozhin generally threatened to withdraw Wagner from Bakhmut and hand over the positions to other Russian units from May 10, if they did not give him enough shells. And within a day he announced that the issue was supposedly resolved: ammunition began to be shipped, and the former commander of the occupation forces, Sergei Surovikin, was appointed to be responsible for communication between the Wagnerʼs PMC and the Russian Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin also stated that for the first time during the invasion, the "Wagnerians" received a "combat order" from the Ministry of Defense. He confirmed that Wagnerʼs PMC is controlled by the Russian state and operates under the orders of the Ministry of Defense. Until 2022, Prigozhin was always in the shadows, and the "Wagnerians" denied any connection with the Russian authorities. However, on May 9, Prigozhin published a new video in which he stated that the "Wagnerians" received only 10% of the required number of shells. According to him, the "Wagnerians" in Bakhmut "will wait for a few more days". Commenting on the military parade in Moscow, he urged "not to show off on Red Square."

Over the past 10 days, explosions and sabotage in the deep Russian rear have become more and more frequent. Drones hit Russian oil depots both in Crimea and on the territory of Russia, near the settlements of Taman and Ilskyi. In the Bryansk region, freight trains with fuel derailed twice due to an explosion. On May 6, Russian politician and combatant Zakhar Prilepin was blown up in the Nizhny Novgorod region. He survived, but suffered serious leg injuries.

The drone attack on the Kremlin building on the night of May 3 became the most resonant. With an interval of 15 minutes, two drones exploded near the dome of the Senate Palace of the Kremlin, where Putinʼs office is located. The drones did not significantly damage the building — only the roof burned a little. The Russian flag at the Senate Palace did not light up either. The Kremlin immediately accused Ukraine of shelling and called it a "terrorist attack", the Ukrainian authorities denied their involvement.

After the attack on the Kremlin, the Russians started launching missiles and Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones almost every night over Kyiv. On the night of May 4, the day after the explosions near the Kremlin, Ukrainian air defense forces shot down a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile on its approach to Kyiv. For several days, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not want to talk about it, but then the information appeared in the media and social networks, and Air Force Commander Mykola Oleschuk confirmed that the Kinzhal was shot down from the American Patriot anti-aircraft missile complex.

Ukrainian troops refuted the myth of the Russian authorities about the presence of a hypersonic missile in Russia. The assumption of experts that the Kinzhal is not a hypersonic weapon, but an ordinary ballistic missile launched from an airplane, has been confirmed. And on the night of May 8, more than 30 Iranian drones were shot down over the capital — this is the largest drone attack on Kyiv during the entire time of the full-scale invasion.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine initiated the lowering of the maximum age of conscripts from 27 to 25 years. Now they are not subject to mobilization. That is, men aged 18 to 27, who had no military service experience and did not graduate from a military department, were mobilized only at their own will. The Ministry of Defense reported that in the conditions of martial law, when there is no conscription, such a high age limit is unnecessary. The Cabinet of Ministers has already supported the relevant bill.

In the Kharkiv region, the front line does not change. The Russians still control a small area in the northeast, near the Russian-Ukrainian border. The occupiers are trying to advance in the direction of Kupyansk and along the Oskil River in order to throw the Ukrainian army behind it.

In the Luhansk region, the Russians are not advancing either. The biggest battles continue in the area of the village of Dibrova and in the forests south of Kreminna. The main goal of the Russians is to push Ukrainian troops away from the cities of Kreminna and Svatove, as well as from the road between them.

On the southern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River — the administrative border of Luhansk region and Donetsk region — the Russians continue to attack the village of Bilogorivka and the villages of Verkhnyokamyanske and Spirne. These settlements cover the flank of the Ukrainian military, which restrains the Russians behind Soledar, and prevents them from reaching Siversk quickly and simultaneously from several sides. The occupiers will pay less attention to this direction until they capture Bakhmut.

The "Wagnerians" still cannot finally capture Bakhmut — this is the reason for Prigozhinʼs hysteria. Over the past 10 days, the Russians have advanced only a few hundred meters, and several blocks with high-rise buildings remain under Ukrainian control. The defense of Bakhmut has been going on for over 9 months, and in recent weeks the Russians have been advancing less and less.

The situation is the same around Avdiivka. A month ago, the Russians were able to capture several villages north of the city, but now they are making almost no progress.

In all other directions in Donetsk region, the situation has hardly changed. Fighting continues in the town of Maryinka, but the Russians are unable to advance there. The defense of the city has been going on for 14 months, the occupiers have not been able to capture it since the very beginning of the full-scale invasion. In the Vuhledar region, the situation has also stabilized, so far the occupiers are not actively trying to advance there.

The front line does not change in the Zaporizhzhia region. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has yet attempted a large-scale attack in this direction, but they continue mutual shelling. The Russian army is preparing for defense in the Zaporizhzhia region: it is erecting fortifications and digging kilometer-long trenches. Russian Telegram channels write almost every day that Ukraine is concentrating its forces in this direction and has already begun conducting combat reconnaissance to identify the weakest points in the Russian defense.

Against the background of these rumors, the occupation administration of the Zaporizhia region announced the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements, including Tokmak, Energodar, Vasylivka, and Pology. All of them are located within a radius of up to 50 kilometers from the current front line. Previous announcements by the Russians about evacuation in the occupied Kharkiv region and Kherson region ended with the liberation of these territories by Ukrainian troops.

In the Kherson region, the front line does not change either — it stabilized along the Dnipro River. Mutual shelling continues there across the river. Most likely, the front line along the Dnipro here will remain unchanged until the occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region begins to be liberated.

However, over the past 10 days, the Russians have begun shelling the right bank of the Kherson region more. Only on May 3, more than 20 civilians were killed by Russian shelling, and 46 more people were injured. Because of this, the Ukrainian authorities had to impose a long curfew from May 5 to 8, as well as resume free evacuation, especially for residents of villages located near the Dnipro. Russia is shelling these territories with guided aerial bombs.

On May 3, the USA announced another package of military aid to Ukraine. It included various types of shells and ammunition, as well as additional 155-mm howitzers. Among the new kinds of weapons are short-range Hydra-70 unguided missiles. These are old aviation missiles with a range of up to 8 kilometers. However, APKWS guidance systems can be installed on them — this will turn the Hydra-70 into high-precision projectiles.

The European Union has finally agreed on all the key details and mechanisms of its plan to supply Ukraine with a million rounds of ammunition. The EU allocated one billion euros for the purchase of shells, as well as another €500 million to increase its own production.

On May 2, the Danish Parliament decided to allocate the largest package of military aid worth $250 million to Ukraine to help "successfully complete the upcoming counteroffensive." It will include demining and armored repair and evacuation vehicles, mobile field bridges, and much more.

Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.

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