War in Ukraine: Hundreds freed from Mariupol steel mill

Created: 05/06/2022, 09:54

By: Daniel Dillmann, Nail Akkoyun

Russia intensifies fighting in eastern Ukraine.

A major evacuation mission succeeds in Mariupol.

• Ukraine - News from the war:

  The Russian Air Force wants to concentrate on the east of the country in the Ukraine war.

• Video shows extent of destruction

  :

  A drone video from Russia shows a small town in Ukraine that was completely destroyed.

• You can read everything about the Ukraine conflict in our current

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Update from Friday, May 6th, 9:52 a.m .:

According to Ukraine, 500 civilians have so far been freed in the course of the recent evacuation of the Azovstal steelworks in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

"We managed to get 500 civilians out," said the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office Andriy Yermak on his Telegram channel on Friday.

He spoke of a "further stage of the evacuation" that should continue in the next few days and thanked the UN for its help in organizing the refugee corridors.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres had previously spoken of 500 civilians who, thanks to the United Nations and the Red Cross, were able to flee the south-eastern Ukrainian city, which was largely occupied except for the steelworks.

Guterres emphasized that he hopes for more refugee corridors.

Up to 200 civilians and an unknown number of Ukrainian fighters are said to be still holding out in the steelworks.

Fire breaks of several hours have been agreed for Friday and Saturday.

Moscow had promised the civilian population a free evacuation.

The Kremlin is demanding that the Ukrainian soldiers lay down their arms and surrender.

Then their life and medical treatment would be guaranteed.

Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol on May 5.

The city is hard fought in the Ukraine war.

© Uncredited/dpa/AP

Ukraine-News: Russia shells monastery in Donbass

+++ 10:30 p.m .:

The Ukrainian general staff reported on its Facebook page that the Russian army had tried unsuccessfully to advance in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

The Russians would also continue to fire missiles at transport infrastructure to prevent the delivery of aid and weapons.

+++ 9 p.m.:

Before the commemoration of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II on May 9, the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia ordered a curfew.

This should apply from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning.

The city in southeastern Ukraine has become a major hub for evacuees from the port city of Mariupol.

During the war, curfews of a similar length have been imposed in other Ukrainian cities due to fears of Russian attacks.

+++ 7:00 p.m .:

According to his office, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about possible deliveries of longer-range weapons.

These should "prevent the bombing of civilians," it says after a phone call.

The course of the war was also discussed.

Ukraine video: Russia continues shelling in the east

+++ 17.15:

Russia continues shelling towns in eastern Ukraine.

According to the Ukrainska Pravda news portal, a Christian Orthodox monastery in the small town of Svyatogorsk was also hit.

Seven civilians who had taken refuge there were wounded.

+++ 4.30 p.m .:

Even after more than 70 days, the end of the Ukraine war is not in sight.

According to the Russian government, this is mainly due to the EU and NATO.

The West is constantly providing Ukraine with "intelligence information," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press conference.

In addition, there would be a constant “flow of arms deliveries”.

These are "measures that do not contribute to a quick conclusion of the operation".

Ukraine War: Video shows extent of destruction

+++ 4:00 p.m .:

Since the beginning of the war with Russia, Ukraine has been a field of rubble in some places.

This is underlined by a video made by a drone of the town of Popasna.

The recordings were published by the US news channel CNN.

When the video was shot cannot be verified.

It was first published in a pro-Russian Telegram channel.

The drone is apparently a reconnaissance drone used by the Russian military.

Ukraine News: Kyiv launches counterattack in north - fierce fighting in east

+++ 3.30 p.m .:

In the Ukraine war, the armed forces of Kiev are apparently preparing for the next counterattack.

The offensive was launched near Kharkiv, said Valeriy Zalushnyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

The area around the city of Izyum is particularly affected.

In the east of the country around the city of Luhansk, too, the attackers from Russia continued to resist fiercely.

Ukraine News: Russian Air Force focuses on east of country

First report from Thursday, May 5th, 3:00 p.m.:

Moscow/Donetsk – Is Russia about to change course in the Ukraine war?

According to analysts, the Russian armed forces are still unable to gain air superiority in eastern Ukraine.

They told the Moscow Times online newspaper that Russian pilots went into aerial combat "largely risk-averse" and preferred to attack ground targets with long-range missiles.

But with dwindling stockpiles of precision missiles, a lack of infantry, and the pressure on the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin, Moscow is likely to step up its airstrikes in the coming weeks.

“Russia has been very reluctant to use tactical airstrikes in this conflict.

I think we're at a point now where they're taking a different approach," Dara Massicott, a senior policy researcher at America's Rand Corporation, told The Moscow Times.

Ukraine-News: Russia suffers heavy casualties

The Russian army's balance sheet so far reads devastatingly: Although the aircraft fleet at the beginning of the Ukraine war was about 15 times larger than that of Ukraine, Ukrainian aircraft are still flying missions - and with success.

"Air Force fighter jets, bombers and attack aircraft continue to perform duties in Ukrainian airspace," Ukraine's Defense Ministry said in a statement last week.

Ukraine news: Russian pilots 'not as good as we thought'

According to experts, the fact that Russia was unable to overwhelm the Ukrainian air force is due to a lack of organization and operational incompetence.

"At the individual pilot level, the Russians are not as good as we thought," said Robert Bell, a former NATO official and professor at Georgia Tech Institute.

Instead of conducting complex air operations with many aircraft, as was common in wartime, Russian jets were mostly seen in pairs at most, also flying at low altitude and at night.

After the failed attempt to take Kyiv in April, Russian troops are now concentrating on the roughly 480-kilometer front in eastern Ukraine.

Since then, Moscow's new strategy has become particularly clear: Since the shift to the East, Russian airstrikes have increased by over 150 percent to around 300 per day.

Sam Cranny-Evans, a military analyst at the British think tank Royal United Services Institute, told the Moscow Times.

News on the Ukraine war: Russia is concentrating on the east with airstrikes

The new course is making itself felt in the badly damaged port city of Mariupol and in the city of Kharkiv in the north-east, where recent attacks have caused widespread destruction.

Numerous amateur photos are circulating on the Internet, purporting to show Russian jets operating at low altitude over the Donbass.

However, the Russian military is said to limit such operations in Ukraine to areas near Russian-controlled airspace.

One explanation for Russia's reluctance may be the large amount of short-range anti-aircraft missiles that have been supplied to Ukrainian forces by Western countries since the invasion began.

"The Russians might recall their experience in Afghanistan, where the Stinger missile took away their supremacy in the air," James Lewis, an analyst at Washington's Strategic and International Studies Institute, told the Moscow Times.

According to the intelligence blog Oryx, which tracks Russia's military casualties using open sources, Ukrainian forces have destroyed at least 26 Russian warplanes and 39 helicopters since the war began.

But while the killing may be significant for Ukrainian morale, the Russian army's casualties are unlikely to affect it much.

After all, according to a report by the Center for Naval Analysis, Russia not only has hundreds of combat aircraft, but also 122 SU-34 bombers and 360 attack helicopters capable of carrying anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

Ukraine News: Is Russia speculating on a military conflict with NATO?

It is unclear why Russia is holding back much of its air force.

However, some experts suspect that the fighter jets and helicopters will be kept in case of a military escalation with NATO.

However, as Russia's stockpiles of precision ammunition dwindle, the Air Force will have to resort to more aggressive tactics and use unguided missiles - risking its own planes and pilots' lives in the process.

"The modus operandi we're going to see is the same as in Syria, where most of the weapons were unguided," predicted analyst Dara Massicot.

The new commander of Russia's military operation in eastern Ukraine, Alexander Dvornikov, was once nicknamed the "Butcher of Syria" for authorizing such operations in civilian areas of the country during Russia's military intervention in support of the Assad regime.

The aggressive maneuvers are likely not only to cause more civilian deaths, but also mean a higher rate of attrition for the Russian Air Force and greater destruction on Ukrainian soil.

"There will be many more cities that look like Mariupol," Massicot predicted.

(nak)