A bit more from the ISW assessment, which says there is growing friction between Russian occupation administrations and pro-Russian collaborators in occupied areas of Ukraine, while inside Russia military bloggers are increasingly in-line with western assessments of Russian military failures.
Russian forces in Zaporizhia, are having “serious conflicts” with collaborators due to “interpersonal power conflicts,” in the Zaporizhia region, the US-based think tank cites the region’s military administrations as saying.
A well-known collaborator in Zaporizhia accused the Russian-installed governor of the area of stealing his 10,000 ruble compensation. Advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol Petro Andryshchenko additionally claimed that relatives of those mobilized into the forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) are holding a mass protest against mobilization in Donetsk City.
While ISW cannot independently verify these claims, such discontent amongst occupation elements suggests a general lack of planning by Russian authorities in occupied areas, now compounded by increasingly evident Russian losses.
The ISW meanwhile predicted that the “continued disenchantment of pro-Russian milbloggers with the Russian war effort may fuel dissatisfaction in Russia itself, especially if Moscow continues to press recruitment and conscription efforts that send poorly-trained cannon-fodder to the front lines.”
One such blogger, Igor Strelkov, claimed that the Russian offensive to take Donbas has ultimately failed and that “not a single large settlement “has been liberated.
Strelkov even noted that the capture of Rubizhne [a city in Luhansk] is relatively insignificant because it happened before the new offensive in Donbas had begun.
Strelkov stated that Russian forces are unlikely to liberate Donbas by the summer and that Ukrainian troops will hold their positions around Donetsk City.
Strelkov notably claimed that Russian failures thus far have not surprised him because the intent of Russian command has been so evident throughout the operation that Ukrainian troops are aware of exactly how to best respond and warns that Russian troops are fighting to the point of exhaustion under “rules proposed by the enemy.”
The Russian withdrawal from around Kharkiv is different from previous Russian withdrawals from around Kyiv and other cities, when they pulled back to Russian territory, in that they are trying to retain a position in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War think tank writes in its latest assessment of the conflict.
The Russian grouping around Kharkiv City is notably trying to hold the border and prevent Ukrainian troops from advancing further north.
Russian troops may seek to retain positions in Ukraine and continue artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in order to prevent Ukrainian forces from getting into tube or rocket-artillery range of the outskirts of Belgorod, a major city in Russia and a key hub of the Russian military effort.
The Russians might alternatively hope to conduct a counter-counter-offensive to push back south toward Kharkiv, although such an effort is highly unlikely to succeed.
More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers, many of them wounded, have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, appearing to cede control of the city to Russia after 82 days of bombardment.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said late on Monday that 53 heavily wounded soldiers were evacuated to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk and that more than 200 others were transported through a corridor to Olenivka. An “exchange procedure will take place” to bring evacuees home, she said.
It was unclear how many soldiers remained in the steel plant, but Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said “we hope to save the lives of our boys”.
“I want to underline: Ukraine needs its Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle,” he said in a video statement.
The evacuation is likely to mark the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war and a significant defeat for Ukraine. Mariupol is now in ruins after a Russian siege that Ukraine says killed tens of thousands of people in the city.
For Ukrainians, the Azovstal plant has become a symbol of resistance, with hundreds of troops continuing to fight on there even after the rest of the city had fallen to Russian forces.
Some 600 troops were believed to have been inside the steel plant.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said that the soldiers defending the steel plant had fulfilled their combat mission.
“The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the General Staff said in a statement on its Facebook account. “Efforts to rescue defenders who remain on the territory of Azovstal continue.”
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Hello, this is Helen Livingstone, bringing you the latest developments on the war in Ukraine. Here’s a recap of the latest:
The evacuation of wounded Ukrainian troops from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol is under way, president Volodomyr Zelenskiy confirmed, with more than 260 fighters transported out of the plant. The troops have fulfilled their combat mission, the general staff of the armed forces said.Ukraine’s deputy defense minister has said an “exchange procedure will take place” to bring evacuees home.
Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force said on Monday that 20 civilians, including a child, were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Western military sources say that Vladimir Putin is involved in the war in Ukraine “at the level of a colonel or brigadier”. The Russian leader is reportedly so personally involved he ishelping determine the movement of forces in the Donbas.
Ukrainian officials claimed that troops counter-attacking against Russian forces in the country’s north-east had pushed them back from the city of Kharkiv and advanced as far as the border with Russia.
Russian forces have shelled frontline positions in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area as fighting becomes increasingly focused on Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukrainian forces after more than 11 weeks of war.
After Sweden and Finland yesterday confirmed plans to join Nato, Sweden is seeking to quell Turkish opposition by sending diplomats to the country. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has said Turkey will not approve the bids, and that delegations from the countries should not bother coming.
Vladimir Putin said Russia had “no problems” with Finland and Sweden. “And so in this sense there is no immediate threat to Russia from an expansion to include these countries,” Putin said. The comments appeared to mark a major shift in rhetoric, after years of casting Nato enlargement as a direct threat to Russia’s security. However he did say that the expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow.
Hungary has been accused of “holding the EU hostage” over its refusal to agree an oil embargo against Russia, as the bloc struggles to reach consensus on its latest sanctions aimed at eroding the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.
American fast-food giant McDonald’s will exit the Russian market and sell its business in the increasingly isolated country, the company said on Monday. Meanwhile, the Moscow city government is to take over a factory belonging to the French carmaker Renault and use it to revive the Soviet-era Moskvitch in Russia’s first major nationalization of a foreign company during its war in Ukraine.
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