The week kicked off with news that a tenth Russian general was killed during fighting near the city of Izyum in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, according to the Ukrainian military. Major General Andrei Simonov died after his command post came under artillery fire by Ukrainian forces on Saturday April 30. The bombardment also took out more than 30 Russian armored vehicles, including tanks. Videos circulating on social media appeared to show the command post being hit by Grad rockets, fired from a multiple-launch rocket system. The rate at which the Kremlin is losing senior commanders appears to be setting new records in modern military history. Foreign correspondent Ian Birrell noted in a tweet: "Russia is losing one general a week on average in Putin's disastrous war, which must be an almost unprecedented rate of attrition for such senior officers." It is believed that low morale among Russian troops forces generals to go to the troops in the front and encourage the troops to fight-- resulting in them getting killed themselves.
Two Russian "Raptor" patrol ships were destroyed with Turkish-produced Bayraktar drones near the Zmiinyi (Snake) Island at dawn on Monday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov justified the invasion of Ukraine (to “de-Nazify”) by saying that “Adolf Hitler had Jewish blood.” This didn’t sit very well in Israel, whose Foreign Minister Yair Lapid reacted with disgust, saying: "Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism."
Ukraine has seemed to have blunted most Russian advances. The U.S. Defense Department estimates that Russia has lost about 25% of the force it sent across the Ukraine border. On top of that, the U.K. Ministry of Defense estimates that about 25% of the Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG) that remain are “combat ineffective” due to lacking either personnel or equipment. 600 Russian tanks have been lost. 70 of 90 M777 US howitzers have arrived in country. Combat continues and disinformation abounds. Azovstal still occupies the attention of 3-5 BTGs that would normally be deployed to the east. Two Russian patrol boats have been destroyed by drone strikes. Casualty numbers are still far too inaccurate but using a variety of official reports, the Russians have definitely sustained much higher losses than the Ukrainians at a rate at least proportional to their depleted combat capacity.
An attempted Russian counter attack against areas recently retaken by Ukrainian forces was foiled in Kharkiv. As a result, for the first time ever, a very modern Russian T-90M tank was destroyed, and a BMP-2 IFV captured.
Near the end of the week, there were more rail infrastructure attacks attempting to stop weapons shipments as well as renewed attacks on the Mariupol Azovstal steel works. Ukraine conducted a counteroffensive around Kharkiv and moved the Russians back 40km. More Russian fighters were shot down as the Russians have not gained ground and in some cases, Ukrainian partisans have engaged Russian forces. Russians claimed to have declared a ceasefire even as the escalated their offensive operations in Mariupol. An updated count of deaths in the Mariupol theater center strike is now 600 people.
As we headed into the weekend, a top Ukrainian officias said that all women, children, and the elderly have been evacuated from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Ukrainskaya Pravda reports. The evacuation does not include soldiers of the Ukrainian Defense Forces who continue to courageously fight on from their underground bunkers inside the sprawling steel works even though they are surrounded and heavily outnumbered.
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