May 8, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Russian oligarch Andrey Kovalev has criticized Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and its consequences for Russia.

In a video shared by Kovalev on his Telegram channel Monday, the businessman said at first he was certain that Russian troops would breach Ukraine’s defenses and capture Kyiv swiftly, within two or three weeks. He expressed surprise that this did not happen.

Kovalev pointed out Russia’s heavy losses since invading Ukraine – including the retreat of Russian troops from the positions they reached early in the war, the humiliating sinking of Russia’s Moskva warship last April, the blast on the bridge connecting annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland, and the recent alleged drone strike on the Kremlin. 

“The whole world is against us. One hundred and twenty-two countries voted to recognize us as an aggressor,” he added, referring to a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly last month. The resolution, which qualified the war against Ukraine as "aggression by the Russian Federation," received 122 votes, including from China and India -- two countries that have avoided condemning Moscow's full-scale invasion.

In a separate pre-recorded video posted on his Telegram channel, Kovalev tempered his tone somewhat, suggesting Russian President Vladimir Putin should “call on the service of the sovereign entrepreneurs” to help “ensure victory in the war.”

Andrey Kovalev is a Russian real estate businessman, a public figure, and chairman of the All-Russian Movement of Entrepreneurs. According to his biography on the movement website, he previously held government positions and was a member of the Moscow City Duma. In 2012, Kovalev was included in the “List of the Kings of Russian Real Estate" by Forbes Russia with an income of $55 million.

Is criticism growing?: There is little room for dissenting voices in Russia. Putin’s tight control of Russia’s information space prevents many citizens from accessing accurate reports about the invasion of Ukraine. Those who do attempt to speak out face lengthy prison sentences, or worse.

But there are signs of growing dismay among some Russians over how the faltering invasion has played out. Kovalev’s words echo those of the famous Russian pop star Alla Pugacheva, who in September called for an end to Russian soldiers “dying for illusory aims that make our country a pariah.”

Kovalev’s criticism comes the day before Moscow’s Victory Day Parade – an event held annually on May 9 to mark the anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, and used in recent years to flout Russia’s military strength.

At least one person was killed and three were injured in missile strikes on the southern port city of Odesa on Monday, according to the spokesman for the head of the regional military administration.

Russia fired eight long-range missiles at the city overnight Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said in a statement.

Russian missile attacks were also recorded in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, according to Ukraine's military.

"61 air strikes and 52 enemy attacks from MLRS were documented at our troop positions and populated areas," the Ukrainian military said in a statement Monday.

The Russian-controlled city of Polohy, in the Zaporizhzhia region, is under fire by Ukrainian forces, a pro-Moscow official said on Monday.

“Polohy is under the fire of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Vladimir Rogoc, a member of the Russian-installed main council of the military-civilian administration of the Zaporizhzhia region, said Monday. 

“According to preliminary information, there are injured [people], as well as damage and destruction of civilian infrastructure,” he claimed.

Rogov said authorities had already been evacuating civilians from frontline areas.

More than 1,600 people, including 660 children, have been evacuated from Russian-occupied towns and cities near the front lines in Zaporizhzhia, according to Yevgeniy Balitskiy, the Russia-appointed acting head of the region.

Balitskiy claimed Sunday that the evacuees "have everything they need: food, a place to sleep, constant contact and consultation with specialists."

Russia controls much of the Zaporizhzhia region and it could be a target for Ukraine should it launch its heavily anticipated counteroffensive.

The so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), territory in eastern Ukraine illegally occupied and annexed by Russia, has announced its first grain export from the port of Mariupol.

“The first ship carrying grain from the Donetsk People's Republic loaded at the Mariupol commercial seaport,” the pro-Russian acting head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, posted on his Telegram account on Monday.

Ukrainian authorities said the grain being exported from Mariupol was “stolen” from the country, but added that the move is mostly for the purposes of propaganda, as the port is not fully operational.

“The first three and a half thousand tons of Ukrainian grain from Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions were stolen with the help of the Mariupol seaport,” Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian Mayor of Mariupol said.

“The loading took about one week, which indicates the port's low efficiency. It can be stated that this cargo is more a propaganda piece,” he added. 

Some background: Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, witnessed some of the most intense fighting since Russia launched its invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has estimated that “tens of thousands” died during the siege of the city. Ukrainian forces finally evacuated the city in May last year, after resisting Russia’s advances for weeks.

Images of Mariupol’s destruction became symbols of the Kremlin’s use of indiscriminate firepower in Ukraine, drawing stark visual parallels with the leveling of cities like Syria’s Aleppo or the Chechen capital of Grozny.

At the time of the siege, Mariupol’s mayor estimated that 90% of the city’s infrastructure had been damaged, 40% of it beyond repair.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Mariupol in March – his first visit to territory captured by his forces since the war began.

During his visit, a video showed Putin in discussion with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, outlining plans for “ongoing construction and restoration work” in the city.

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has raised concerns as to the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, describing it as “increasingly unpredictable,” after Moscow ordered the evacuation of residents from Russian-occupied areas close to the facility.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, is held by Russian forces but mostly operated by a Ukrainian workforce.

The town of Enerhodar was among 18 front-line settlements whose residents were evacuated over the weekend. Most of the plant’s staff live in the town, the International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement.

Safety fears: Grossi said he was deeply concerned about the “increasingly tense, stressful, and challenging conditions” for personnel and their families and about “the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant.”

“We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequences for the population and the environment,” Grossi warned.

The evacuation of Enerhodar comes amid rumors of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, with the southern region likely to be a major target as Kyiv seeks to reclaim territories taken by Moscow.

The site director Yuri Chernichuk said operating staff are not being evacuated and “are doing everything necessary to ensure nuclear safety and security at the plant.”

Chernichuk said the plant’s six reactors are all in shutdown mode and its equipment is being maintained, “in accordance with all necessary nuclear safety and security regulations,” according to Grossi.

Why Zaporizhzhia matters: Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear power. Should Russia keep the Zaporizhzhia plant – which it took control of in March last year – Ukraine would lose about 20% of its domestic electricity generating capacity. Analysts have said Russia would want to capture the plant undamaged, with hopes of serving its own electricity market.

The plant has frequently been disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid due to intense Russian shelling in the area, repeatedly raising fears across Europe of a nuclear accident, though experts say another Chernobyl-sized disaster remains unlikely.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky compared Russia to Nazi Germany as he proposed moving World War II Victory Day celebrations a day earlier to May 8 in a bill presented to lawmakers in Kyiv.

Like Russia, Ukraine traditionally commemorates victory over the Nazis on May 9, but that date has become increasingly associated with a parade in Moscow, used by the Kremlin to flex its military might. 

Comparing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Hitler's expansionist goals, Zelensky said the goal of both regimes was the same — "enslavement or destruction."

A cargo train loaded with tanks chugs along under the crisp, spring sun. “Wow,” a woman says, pointing her camera phone at the convoy. “This is the second train, there was one like it just before.”

The video, seemingly filmed in late March, shows old Soviet tanks being transported, somewhere in Russia. Moscow has been known to bring out older military equipment from storage to help it prosecute the war in Ukraine, but these are different.

The tanks are T-55s, a model first commissioned by the Soviet Union’s Red Army in 1948, shortly after the end of World War II.

They’re so old, you can find them in museums.

“This the first main battle tank used by the Soviet Union in the Cold War era,” said historian John Delaney, a senior curator at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in Duxford, Cambridge, as he shows one to CNN.

For the Red Army, that was the T-55 and its many variants, which later became the most widely produced tank in the world, with more than 100,000 units built. Cheap, reliable, easy to use and easy to maintain, it was a military mainstay from Egypt to China to Sudan, where they are still in use.

In Eastern Europe, they were used to quash uprisings in the former Warsaw Pact countries, rolling through the streets of Hungary in 1956, and then Prague, capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, in 1968.

But in following decades, when deployed against Western-built tanks — in some Arab-Israeli conflicts, and then in the Gulf War — they were no match.

Read the full story here.

More than 1,600 people have been evacuated from Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainian region's Russia-backed administration said Monday.

Russia controls much of Zaporizhzhia and the evacuations come amid rumors of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, with the southern region likely to be a major target as Kyiv seeks to push back Moscow’s invasion.

Among the evacuees were 660 minors and 230 psychiatric patients, acting Gov. Yevgeny Balitsky said.

The Russia-backed official has said the evacuations, which began on Friday, were a "necessary measure" due to "intensified shelling of settlements" close to the front line.

Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of using evacuations to forcibly deport Ukrainians.

Read more about the evacuations here.

Five people were injured in Kyiv on Monday after air defenses repelled Russian drone attacks overnight, Ukrainian officials said.

Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said in a statement that falling debris from intercepted drones had damaged residential buildings and cars in the capital's Svyatoshynskyi district.

Falling drone wreckage also caused a fuel leak in the Solomyanskyi district, he added.

The air force warned residents that “even a 100% intercept rate on air targets does not guarantee safety in areas where the air defense is operating! Fragments of anti-aircraft missiles and damaged UAVs always come back down to earth!”

Sustained attacks: On Sunday, Ukraine’s Operation Command South spokeswoman said Russian forces were trying to exhaust Ukraine’s air defense system with repeated attacks.

“They are trying to find a way around it. And they are also expanding their tactics because they do not have a stable stock of the means that they can operate with,” Natalia Humeniuk told local media.

The Russians were also trying “to test and find out where the air defense systems are located,” she added.