May 10, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Additional drone attacks were conducted over Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, Belgorod Oblast Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post Wednesday.

Two drones detonated and fell over a private residential area in the region, Gladkov said. No casualties were reported, but two residential buildings and a car were damaged, he added.

Another drone was shot down by Russian air defense systems over the region, Gladkov said. The governor said there were no casualties and that response teams are assessing the aftermath on the ground.

A drone strike hit Bryansk, another Russian region on the Ukraine border, said Bryansk Gov. Alexander Bogomaz.

Bogomaz said there were no casualties, and that an administrative building was struck in Stardoub. Response teams are working on site, he added. said.

Smoke erupts following a shell explosion in Bakhmut, Ukraine in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on May 7.

Russia has conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in Bakhmut and the Avdiivka and Mariinka areas, with the “fiercest battles” taking place in Bakhmut and Mariinka, according to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff.

Russian forces claimed earlier Wednesday that they had taken the village of Kamianka, north of Avdiivka, where Ukrainian forces have been surrounded on three sides for several months.

Further south — where observers expect a Ukrainian counteroffensive to be focused — Russian forces are conducting “defensive operations in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions,” and had carried out a number of airstrikes, the General Staff said.

If you’re just now catching up, here’s what else you should know:

Zaporizhzhia claims: The Russian defense ministry claimed on Wednesday that Russian forces had hit the ammunition depot of the Ukrainian army’s 65th mechanized brigade in the Zaporizhzhia region – an area that has seen a rise in shelling by both sides in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. A senior Russian-appointed official in the occupied part of the region also made the same claim. Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that Russian soldiers are preventing employees of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from evacuating a nearby frontline town with their families. Russia-backed authorities have ordered the evacuation of thousands of civilians along the southern front as a Ukrainian counteroffensive looms.

The battle for Bakhmut: According to the commander of the Ukrainian Land Forces, Ukrainian forces are conducting “effective counterattacks” in the Bakhmut area. In another expletive-laden tirade, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said one Russian brigade had abandoned its positions south of Bakhmut, leading to many casualties among his fighters. Wagner units have been pulled back to the eastern city of Bakhmut from other areas where they had combat missions, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar. They have been replaced by regular Russian army troops in those areas, she said.

Foreign perspectives: China’s foreign minister warned against an “emotional” view of the war in Ukraine, saying on a visit to Germany that “the only way out is to remain calm and rational and create conditions for a political solution.” And according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is informing China’s calculations on a possible invasion of Taiwan. Meanwhile, France has opened a war crime investigation following the death of Agence France-Presse journalist Arman Soldin in Ukraine, a statement from the country’s antiterrorism prosecution office said on Wednesday. And Italy told its nationals on Wednesday who are still in Ukraine to leave the country “immediately” ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces. Also, Latvia and Canada will begin to train Ukrainian soldiers in Latvia starting on May 15, a statement from the Canadian government said on Wednesday.

Amid reports of fires in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, a senior Russian-appointed official in the occupied part of the region has claimed that a Ukrainian ammunition depot was struck.

The photograph could not be geolocated. 

There’s been no word on the attack from Ukrainian authorities. Some unofficial accounts said a number of properties had been set on fire in a strike by Russian forces.

There are no details about casualties.

The “special military operation” in Ukraine has been what Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described as “very difficult,” but said certain goals have been achieved over the past year.

Speaking to Bosnian Serb channel ATV in remarks carried by Russian state news agency TASS on Wednesday, Peskov said Russia is acting “slowly” In Ukraine because it is conducting a “special military operation, not a war.”

He acknowledged Ukraine’s stronghold in the eastern city of Bakhmut and said “a large amount of AFU troops are concentrated there, which is constantly receiving reinforcements.”

Peskov said the West has made “many mistakes” and “deceived Russia,” which prompted Russia to launch the operation in Ukraine — something he said the West became a participant in.

He maintained that the recent drone attacks on the Kremlin were an “attempted terrorist attack” against Russian President Vladimir Putin. By doing so, Peskov insisted, Ukraine has “equated itself with the state sponsors of terrorism.”

He said Russia will implement all necessary security measures following the incident. Ukrainian officials and the US have repeatedly denied being behind a drone attack on the Kremlin.

Referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued against Putin earlier this year, Peskov said, “It’s difficult to imagine that anyone in the world would seriously consider issuing an ICC warrant against Putin, the leader of a nuclear power.”

Peskov told the channel that his country is “too strong a state” to give up its positions under pressure from the West, and said the Kremlin would not communicate with Western media “until they begin to show some interest in the truth.”

Ukrainian forces are conducting “effective counterattacks” in the Bakhmut area, according to the commander of the Ukrainian Land Forces.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company, also indicated that Ukrainian forces have been able to advance south of Bakhmut.

“It was the competent conduct of the defensive operation that exhausted the trained forces of the Wagner PMC and forced them to be replaced in certain areas by less trained units of the Russian regular army, which were defeated and retreated,” Syrskyi said.

Prigozhin said earlier that units of Russia’s 72nd brigade had retreated from their positions. Other Russian accounts have said Wagner forces have moved to the city itself.

He singled out the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, which was involved in an assault on the positions of the 72nd Brigade, and “inflicted a powerful strike on the enemy in the battle,” Syrskyi said.

Poland summoned Russia’s ambassador on Wednesday after a Russian fighter jet intercepted a Polish border patrol plane last week and nearly resulted in a collision, according to Poland’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lukasz Jasina.

A Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet intercepted a Polish Border Police aircraft flying a mission over the Black Sea near the Romanian border on Friday, Romanian authorities said Sunday.

The incident took place on Friday morning, about 60 km (37 miles) east of Romania’s airspace, the Romanian defense ministry said in a statement. 

The Polish aircraft was there as part of a joint mission coordinated by the European Union border patrol system Frontex. The mission, which is set to last until mid-December, focuses on preventing irregular migration, illegal fishing, marine pollution and other cross-border crimes in the Western Black Sea, according to the ministry. 

The Polish Border Guard on Twitter said the Russian SU-35 flew into the area without radio contact and performed “aggressive and dangerous maneuvers.” 

CNN’s Tim Lister and Xiaofei Xu contributed reporting.

The Russian offensive is concentrated in four different parts of the Donetsk region, with the “fiercest battles” in the cities of Bakhmut and Mariinka, according to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff.

Russia conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in Bakhmut and the Avdiivka and Mariinka areas, it said. Russian forces claimed earlier Wednesday that they had taken the village of Kamianka, north of Avdiivka, where Ukrainian forces have been surrounded on three sides for several months.

Further south — where observers expect a Ukrainian counteroffensive to be focused — Russian forces are conducting “defensive operations in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions,” and had carried out a number of airstrikes, the General Staff said.

Settlements close to the front lines had also been shelled, including 35 airstrikes and four attacks from MLRS [rocket systems] on the positions of Ukrainian troops and settlements of the Kherson region, it added.

The General Staff also claimed that Russians were evacuating civilians in the town of Tokmak in the Zaporizhzhia region to ”terrible living conditions” further south. “Russian occupiers, under the pretext of evacuating civilians, continue to take away looted property from the front-line settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region,” it said, adding that medical institutions in the city of Enerhodar had been looted.

The Ukrainian air force had carried out several strikes, it said, including against a Russian electronic warfare unit. The Ukrainians appear to be trying to disrupt both Russian military communications and electronic warfare capabilities ahead of a counter-offensive.

Fighters from the Wagner private military group have been pulled back to the eastern city of Bakhmut from other areas where they had combat missions, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar. They have been replaced by regular Russian army troops in those areas, she said.

As the situation around Bakhmut appears to become more fluid, Ukraine’s military has not lost any positions in the area over the last day, Maliar said on Telegram.

Russian military bloggers have made similar reports, but they have complained that there is little coordination between Wagner fighters and Russian forces. Those same complaints have also been aired by the head of the mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Earlier Wednesday, Prigozhin said a Russian brigade had abandoned its positions south of Bakhmut, leading to many casualties among his fighters.  

AFP journalist Arman Soldin, walks in a trench while covering the war in Ukraine on March 18.

France has opened a war crime investigation following the death of Agence France-Presse journalist Arman Soldin in Ukraine, a statement from the country’s antiterrorism prosecution office said on Wednesday. 

The investigation was opened under three “war crimes,” according to the translated statement, including: a “voluntary attack on the life and physical or psychological integrity of a person,” the “deliberate attack against the civilian population,” and the “deliberate attack in the knowledge that it will cause incidental loss of civilian life or injury to the civilian population.”

France’s antiterrorism prosecution office has already opened seven preliminary investigations against “persons unknown” for war crimes committed since February 2022 against French nationals in Ukraine, the statement added. “Two of them concern crimes committed against French journalists in the exercise of their profession,” it said.

Soldin was killed in a rocket attack on the outskirts of the town of Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut, AFP announced on Twitter, citing colleagues who witnessed the incident. Soldin and the reporting team were with Ukrainian soldiers when they came under fire around 4:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, according to AFP. The 32-year-old was with four colleagues at the time of the attack, but the other journalists were not injured, the news agency added.

Italy on Wednesday told its nationals still in Ukraine to leave the country “immediately” ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces.

“Rocket attacks on the whole country continue. All compatriots still present are advised to leave Ukraine immediately. Risk of collapse of energy infrastructure,” the Italian embassy in Kyiv said on its website.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has assured a counteroffensive “will happen,” while demurring on any exact start date.

Latvia and Canada will begin to train Ukrainian soldiers in Latvia starting on May 15, a statement from the Canadian government said on Wednesday.

According to the statement, the initiative was developed jointly between Canadian Armed Forces and the Latvian National Armed Forces and will see both forces deliver the training for the Armed Forces of Ukraine through Operation UNIFIER.  

This initiative is in addition to the other ongoing deployments through Operation UNIFIER in support of Ukraine, the statement said. 

Some background: About 800 Canadian Armed Forces members are currently deployed to Latvia, where Canada has served as Framework Nation of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group Latvia since 2017, the statement said.

Two Russian servicemen have been sentenced to 2.5 years for refusing to serve in Ukraine, according to the independent human rights monitor OVD-Info.

Both men — from the Kamchatka area in Russia’s Far East — were found guilty under the article on refusal to participate in hostilities, which carries a maximum penalty of up to three years in prison, according to OVD-Info.

One of the soldiers, Alexander Stepanov, was sentenced on April 25, according to the case file. The press service of the court reports that on January 18, Stepanov refused to follow the orders of the commander of the military unit and refused to go to war in Ukraine during mobilization.

The second serviceman is Andrey Mikhailov, who was sentenced on April 27 under similar circumstances. Mikhailov refused to go to fight in Ukraine on January 21 — three days after Stepanov’s decision.

The Russian courts have already received more than 500 cases against servicemen who directly refused to carry out orders to be sent to Ukraine or have deserted from the front, according to calculations by the independent media outlet Mediazona in March. But it added that most such cases were hidden from public view: sentences are usually not published and statistics are hidden or deleted.

In more than one-third of known AWOL convictions defendants receive suspended sentences, which means they can be sent to the front again, Mediazona reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech on April 27, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Wednesday permitting the conscription for military training of citizens in the reserve, according to a document published on the government’s website.

Military training of Russian citizens in the reserve is an annual event.

The Russian military reserve consists of a special combat army reserve, which may number as many as two million, and a larger group of eligible reservists, estimated by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as almost 25 million people.

Some background: Russia’s move to send hundreds of thousands to fight on the battlefields of Ukraine has generated dissent and protest and prompted many Russians – young men in particular – to flee the country. In April, Putin signed a law that made the country’s conscription program more efficient, more modern – and harder to evade.

CNN’s Rob Picheta contributed to this post.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, right, is seen here in a grab from a video released on May 9.

While Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has frequently poured scorn on Russia’s Defense Ministry and its leadership, he has not previously accused Russian units of running from battle and allowing Ukrainian forces to recapture territory.

But in another expletive-laden tirade released on the same day that the Kremlin commemorated victory over Nazi Germany, Prigozhin said one Russian brigade had abandoned its positions south of Bakhmut, leading to many casualties among his fighters.  

In comments Tuesday, Prigozhin said “one of the units of the Ministry of Defense fled from one of our flanks, abandoning their positions. They all fled and [laid] bare a front nearly 2 kilometers [1.25 miles] wide and 500 meters [1,640ft] deep.”

Prighozhin said that the “72nd brigade f***ed up three square kilometers (1.1 miles) today, on which I had about 500 people killed. Because it was a strategic bridgehead. They just ran the hell out of there.”

The 72nd Brigade (or Separate Motorized Regiment as it is sometimes called) is part of the Russian military’s Western Military District.

As for soldiers fleeing, Prigozhin said: “The fish rots from the head. A soldier leaves the trenches because it is not necessary to die [as] useless. A soldier may die, but a soldier should not die because of the utter stupidity of his leadership.”

Speaking to Russian media, Prigozhin reiterated that Wagner had planned to leave the area because its units had inadequate ammunition – a decision postponed when a promise was made that supplies would be sent by May 9, he said.

“During the day of May 8-9, 2023, the required amount of ammunition was not issued,” Prigozhin said.

Separately, a prominent Russian military blogger, Anastasiya Kashevarova, has reported a complete lack of communication in the Bakhmut area between Wagner and Russian regular forces (72nd Brigade.) 

She wrote on Telegram: “The 72nd has a ban on working with the ‘orchestra’ [Wagner] and Wagner is too proud.”

Often, she added, a brigade does not know who is on its right or left. “There is no single command that would be respected by all without exception, “ she added. “Complete disunity of the front…the enemy is using it.”

The Ukrainian military has confirmed that its forces have made gains south of Bakhmut – a dramatic turn of events in an area where gains and losses have usually been measured in several feet.

The Ukrainian Third Assault Brigade, which has advanced in the area, spoke of eliminating dozens of Russian soldiers, and released video showing its tanks, supported by infantry, overrunning Russian trenches.

Some background: In an explosive, expletive-laden rant last week, Prigozhin appeared in front of dozens of his dead soldiers and blamed Russia’s military leadership for “tens of thousands” of Wagner casualties.

In late April, he threatened to withdraw his troops from Bakhmut if Moscow didn’t provide more ammunition. Prigozhin later backtracked on his threat after receiving promises of more ammunition.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine on March 29.

Russian soldiers are preventing employees of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from evacuating a nearby frontline town with their families, Ukraine’s military said Wednesday. 

Russia-backed authorities have ordered the evacuation of thousands of civilians along the southern front as a Ukrainian counteroffensive looms.

Enerhodar, where most of the nuclear plant’s staff live, was among 18 settlements whose residents were evacuated over the weekend. The evacuees were moved to recreation centers and hotels in the southern towns of Berdiansk and Kyrylivka, while others were taken to Russia’s Rostov region, Ukraine’s military said.

Remember: The Zaporizhzhia plant is Europe’s largest nuclear power station and has been held by Russian forces since early in the invasion last year. It is mostly operated by a Ukrainian workforce.

The plant’s position on the front lines means shelling in the surrounding towns and near the facility is common. The UN’s nuclear watchdog again raised concerns earlier this week about safety at the plant, describing the situation as being “increasingly unpredictable.”

The Russian defense ministry claimed on Wednesday that Russian forces had hit the ammunition depot of the Ukrainian army’s 65th mechanized brigade in the Zaporizhzhia region – an area that has seen a rise in shelling by both sides in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. 

“An ammunition depot of the 65th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed near the village of Preobrazhenka, Zaporizhzhia region,” said the ministry in its daily briefing. There’s been no word from the Ukrainian side.

In addition, the ministry said that Russian assault detachments continued to move further into the northwestern and western outskirts of Bakhmut, while Russian airborne forces were “suppressing enemy actions on the flanks.”

Some context: The ministry’s version of events around Bakhmut is at odds with that of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who says he lost 500 fighters because one Russian army unit had abandoned its positions south of Bakhmut, allowing Ukrainian forces to take a swathe of territory.

In an angry video message, Prigozhin said Russian units were “running away.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is informing China’s calculations on a possible invasion of Taiwan, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN Wednesday.

“What happens in Europe matters for Asia, and what happens in Asia matters for Europe,” Stoltenberg told CNN.

Qin Gang, Minister of Foreign Affairs of China speaks during a visit to Berlin, Germany, on May 9.

China’s foreign minister has warned against an “emotional” view of the war in Ukraine, saying on a visit to Germany that “the only way out is to remain calm and rational and create conditions for a political solution.”

Foreign Minister Qin Gang met with his counterpart Annalena Baerbock in Berlin on Tuesday. 

Speaking at a regular press briefing in Beijing Wednesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Qin used the trip to state that “China is neither a conflict maker nor a participant in the conflict, but an advocate of peace and a promoter of peace talks.”

The ministry said Qin urged Germany to “play a leading role and put forward concrete proposals for the construction of a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework.”

On Tuesday, Baerbock called on China to promise it will not help Russia avoid European sanctions.

“It is particularly critical if Russian weaponry companies obtain war-related goods,” she said, adding that all countries — China included — should take action to oblige their companies. “Neutrality means taking the side of the aggressor,” Baerbock said. 

Some background: Beijing has provided Moscow with a diplomatic lifeline as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seen Moscow sanctioned by Western governments. China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion or make any public call for Russia to withdraw its troops. Its officials have instead repeatedly said that the “legitimate” security concerns of all countries must be taken into account and accused NATO and the US of fueling the conflict.

Russia had hoped to welcome its annual Victory Day on Tuesday with news that Ukraine’s eastern city of Bakhmut – which Russian forces have for months tried to capture – had finally fallen. But “they were not able to capture Bakhmut,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared in Kyiv. And today, Russian forces have suffered another setback in the area.

Here are the latest developments:

Here’s where the state of control stands in Ukraine: