Day 436 of the Invasion of Ukraine: Prigozhin furious with Russian MoD, Wagner's troops will Withdraw from Bakhmut

Ukraine | May 5, 2023, Friday // 10:08|  views

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Day 436 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

  • Wagner's troops will withdraw from Bakhmut
  • The EEAS called the Russian attacks in Odesa and Kyiv "war crimes"
  • The Ukrainian Air Force shot down its own drone over the center of Kyiv
  • Russia is highly unlikely to use nuclear weapons, US director of national intelligence said
  • The Berlin police are investigating how information about Zelensky's visit was leaked
  • The US claims that Russia is deporting Ukrainian children from minority communities


Wagner's troops will withdraw from Bakhmut

The leader of the Russian military group Wagner has threatened to withdraw his troops from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut by Wednesday over an ammunition dispute.

Yevgeny Prigozhin made his statement after posting a video on social media. The footage shows Prigozhin walking among the bodies of dead fighters, asking the Russian defense minister for more supplies of ammunition.

Recently, the leader of "Wagner" has published several video messages about the progress of the fighting near Bakhmut, claiming that a large part of the Ukrainian city is already under the control of his troops, but he also criticized the rulers in the Kremlin for not having enough support from Moscow.

The EEAS called the Russian attacks in Odesa and Kyiv "war crimes"

The European External Action Service has described Russian attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine this week as "war crimes". "We are talking about the missile attacks on Odesa and Kyiv, where drones were also used, and also on the civil infrastructure in the Kherson region, where a large supermarket, a railway station and a gas station were hit. The EU has made it clear that there will be no impunity for the commanders and perpetrators of these atrocities and remains committed to holding them to account," the office said in a statement.

It recalls that in the last barbaric actions of Russia, more than 20 people were killed and almost 50 were injured in Kherson, all of them civilians.

The Ukrainian Air Force shot down its own drone over the center of Kyiv

Ukraine's air force has shot down one of its own drones, which it said had become uncontrollable, over central Kyiv, the BBC reported, after explosions were heard in the center of the capital yesterday evening.

On Thursday night, there were explosions for about 15-20 minutes as air defenses tried to shoot it down in the area near the presidency. Initially, the president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, reported that an enemy drone had been shot down. The Air Force of Ukraine later admitted that it was Ukrainian and was destroyed to avoid "undesirable circumstances".

A statement said the Bayraktar TB2 UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] became uncontrollable around 20:00 in the Kyiv region during a scheduled flight. It was decided to take it down "because the uncontrolled presence of unmanned aerial vehicles in the sky of the capital could lead to undesirable consequences".

There were no casualties or damage from the drone crash.

"It's a shame, but it's technology and things like this happen," the Air Force said in a statement.

Videos of the effort to bring down the drone were widely shared on social media. There was a whoop of joy when the drone was finally brought down.

The head of the city's military administration, Sergey Popko, said a fire had been brought under control in the building where the drone was shot down in the Solomyansky district, west of the city center.

On Wednesday, Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin aimed at killing President Vladimir Putin, who was not in the building at the time. On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US was "undoubtedly" behind the alleged attack, without providing evidence. US national security spokesman John Kirby called it a "ridiculous claim". Ukraine said it had nothing to do with the alleged attack on the Kremlin and accused Moscow of staging the incident to escalate the war.

Russia is highly unlikely to use nuclear weapons, US director of national intelligence said

Russia is highly unlikely to use a nuclear weapon, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said yesterday, quoted by Reuters.

"It's very unlikely in our current assessment," Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Tensions between Russia and the US over the nuclear threat have risen since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly warning that Moscow is ready to use its nuclear arsenal if it has to defend its "territorial integrity".

In February, Putin announced that Russia was freezing its participation in the New START treaty, which was the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement with the United States, limiting the number of strategic nuclear warheads each country could have.

Haines did not elaborate on the reduced estimates of the US intelligence community.

US officials have said for months that they see no signs that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons, but have also warned that they will remain vigilant.

Last month, a senior US diplomat said the US and NATO should remain vigilant for signs that Russian President Vladimir Putin may use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Putin's March 25 announcement that Russia was preparing to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus "was his attempt to exploit that threat."

However, for now there are assurances from Moscow that it will refrain from using nuclear weapons, notes Reuters.

Last week, for example, the Kremlin played down claims that Russia may be planning a nuclear test and said all nuclear-armed states adhere to a moratorium on nuclear tests.

The Berlin police are investigating how information about Zelensky's visit was leaked

The Berlin police have launched an investigation to clarify how details about a potential visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the German capital, scheduled for mid-May, got into the press, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.

"This morning an article appeared in a Berlin daily newspaper purporting to quote a Berlin police officer. The press report contained confidential details of a planned operation," police said in a statement yesterday, linked to a Wednesday media release.

Zelensky's trips abroad are usually kept secret until the last moment for security reasons. Neither the German government nor the Ukrainian embassy have commented on reports of Zelensky's planned visit to Berlin.

Local newspaper B.Z. first reported on Wednesday that Berlin police were preparing for a possible visit by Zelensky on May 13 and 14, citing unnamed sources.

Berlin police confirmed the report when asked about it by other media outlets, including DPA. Police yesterday defended their decision to confirm information about the visit, arguing that its earlier leak to the media rendered its denial meaningless.

Police "never provided information that would jeopardize the state visit," the statement said. "Only in response to inquiries based on previous media reports, the Berlin police press office confirmed the upcoming operation."

The police chief said it was "intolerable that a single police officer, at least according to the press release, has tarnished the reputation of the Berlin police nationally and internationally in such a shameful way."

Zelensky was in the Netherlands yesterday and met with Scandinavian leaders in Helsinki earlier this week. These trips were not announced in advance.

The West German city of Aachen plans to present Zelensky with the prestigious "Charlemagne" award on May 14. Organizers of the event said they were preparing for Zelensky to attend the ceremony in person, although there has been no official confirmation of those plans.

Other prominent figures, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, are expected to travel to Aachen for the event.

According to the German media "t-online", the apparent leak of information by the police has caused anger and discontent in Kyiv.

The publication cited unnamed sources close to the Ukrainian government who called the disclosure "irresponsible" and said the leak "calls into question the possible visit of the Ukrainian president."

The US claims that Russia is deporting Ukrainian children from minority communities

Certainly at least some of the children transferred to Russia or its controlled territories are from ethnic minorities in Ukraine”.

This is how Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), answered a question of Bulgarian media “Club Z”. It is one of the international organizations that check the responsibility for war crimes in Ukraine.

More than 1,000 children have been deported since Crimea was annexed in 2014 alone, the diplomat said at a telephone briefing for journalists in Brussels. Moreover, this process began even before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Of these children, only 361 have been returned to their homeland.

The data are from a report published yesterday by the Moscow Mechanism of the OSCE. It is an instrument according to which it is possible to send expert missions assisting participating countries in solving a specific issue or problems with a humanitarian dimension.

Carpenter, however, said he could not do a breakdown by nationality of the deported children. But he pointed out that many Tatars live in Crimea.

A Bulgarian minority also lives in Ukraine. At the end of March, “Club Z” asked the presidency in Sofia whether Bulgarian authorities have data on children of Bulgarian origin kidnapped in Ukraine. The presidency replied that they do not have such information, but they are wary for signals from the Bulgarian community in the country.

So far, authorities in Kyiv have documented cases of deportation of 20,000 Ukrainian children, Michael Carpenter pointed out. But he added that the OSCE believes that this is probably the minimum number. And in reality, the number is much higher. This is difficult to establish at the moment, as Russia does not admit representatives of international organizations, including the OSCE.

A report on the Moscow mechanism specifically noted that in some cases deportations constituted war crimes. Some of the children taken out of Crimea were transferred far away - to Siberia and the Russian Far East.

Many of the deported children were forcibly adopted and re-educated in their new families.

It was because of the kidnapped Ukrainians that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, who is in charge of children's rights in his administration.


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Tags: Ukraine, Russia, Zelensky, US

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