As the war enters its 439th day, we take a look at the main developments.
Here is the situation as it stands on Monday, May 8, 2023:
Fighting
- Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, says he received “a promise” of more ammunition from the Russian army after threatening to pull his front-line troops out of Bakhmut, Ukraine.
- Russia’s defence ministry claims its forces have taken two more “blocks” in the northwestern and western parts of the ruined eastern Ukrainian city.
- Russia’s defence ministry says its air defences detected and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea on Saturday night.
- There were reports of multiple blasts in Russian-occupied Crimea as the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, accused Kyiv of staging more than 10 drone attacks on the peninsula.
- Ukraine has said it shot down a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using the newly acquired US Patriot defence system.
- As of Sunday, more than 1,500 people had been evacuated from the Zaporizhia region, including the town that is home to many of the people working in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, amid safety concerns at the plant.
- Ukraine’s prosecutor general has disclosed that six members of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service were killed during Russian shelling in the southern region of Kherson.
- Russia’s Federal Security Service says it foiled an attempt by Ukrainian intelligence to attack a military airfield in central Russia using drones stuffed with explosives.
- Russia is preparing to stage its annual Victory Day parade on the Red Square in Moscow amid security concerns after a series of drone attacks on Russian territory.
- Russian writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin has come out of an induced coma, officials said, after being seriously injured in a car bomb attack that Russia blamed on Ukraine.
Diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet responded to proposals from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the Black Sea grain deal, TASS state news agency reported, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
- Russia is facing a labour shortage that will probably “lead to a reduction in the potential growth of the Russian economy and risks stoking inflation,” according to the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence.
- A Polish border guard aircraft, on patrol for the European Union’s border agency Frontex over the Black Sea near Romania, narrowly avoided a collision with a Russian fighter jet on Friday, Romania and Poland have disclosed.
- Russia has returned to international judo competition for the first time in nearly a year at the world championships; Ukraine has boycotted the key Olympic qualifier.
Weapons
- Turkey rejected calls from Washington to send a Russian S-400 missile defence system to Ukraine, said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.