War in Ukraine: Russia drops bomb on school where 90 people were sheltering
Created: 05/08/2022, 05:11
By: Daniel Dillmann, Tanja Banner, Nail Akkoyun, Andreas Apetz
Moscow has to cope with a large number of generals killed in the Ukraine war.
This is increasingly becoming a problem for Russia.
Prisoner exchange in the Ukraine war:
Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners.
41 Ukrainians, including eleven women, are said to have been released.
Ukraine - News from the war:
The Russian Air Force wants to concentrate on the east of the country in the Ukraine war.
You can read everything about the Ukraine conflict in our current
news ticker
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+++ 10:55 p.m .: Ukraine accuses Russia of throwing a bomb at a school in the Luhansk region where 90 people had sought shelter.
As reported by CNN, Serhiy Hayday, part of the military administration in the Luhansk region, said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the school in the village of Bilohorivka, about eleven kilometers from the front line.
30 people have now been rescued from the rubble.
"Almost the entire town hid there, everyone who didn't escape," CNN quoted Hayday as saying.
"The school's basement was the only place for rescue, but the Russians took that chance away from people," Hayday said.
The salvage operation is still ongoing, pictures show that the school is in ruins.
A fighter for the pro-Russian separatists in the city of Popasna, which was completely destroyed in the Ukraine war.
© Alexander Reka/imago
Ukraine news: Difficult for Russia to replace war equipment
+++ 10.30 a.m .:
The Ukraine war is a heavy drain on Russia’s military forces.
According to the British Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian forces have managed to destroy a T-90M, "Russia's most advanced tank".
The war vehicle is one of the Russian elite units and the core of the newly formed 1st Guards Tank Army.
The T-90M is particularly well protected against anti-tank systems due to its reinforced armor.
According to the British MoD, it will be extremely difficult for Russia to replace the war equipment that has been destroyed.
This would be due to Western sanctions, which would make the production of new T-90M tanks significantly more difficult.
The value of a tank is almost 4.9 million euros.
Currently, the Russian military has 100 T-90M.
Ukraine-News: Numerous Russian generals killed - military leadership significantly weakened
+++ Update, May 07, 2022, 6:30 a.m.:
The high number of generals killed in the Ukraine war worsens the situation of the Russian military.
This is reported, among other things, by the Moscow Times.
"Every death of a general makes Russian armed forces less effective," independent military analyst Pavel Luzhin told the news portal.
In total, more than twelve high-ranking generals are said to have died in the Ukraine war, which has now lasted just over two months.
That is twice as many as in the ten years of the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan.
According to the Moscow Times, it takes a soldier in the Russian army about 15 years to reach the rank of general.
Ukraine News: Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners
+++ 8.30 p.m .:
Two and a half months after the start of the war, according to Ukrainian information, there was another exchange of prisoners with Russia.
On Friday, 41 Ukrainians, including eleven women, were released, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote in the Telegram news service.
There are 28 soldiers and 13 civilians.
There was initially no confirmation from the Russian side.
It was also initially unclear how many Russian military personnel were said to have been released from Ukrainian captivity in return.
Ukraine war: "Russia is here forever!"
+++ 19:00:
A deputy from the Kremlin party United Russia has for the first time commented on Moscow's intentions in the occupied southern Ukrainian region of Cherson.
"Russia is here forever!" Said Duma deputy Andrei Turchak during a visit to the city of Kherson.
That must be made clear to the more than 200,000 residents.
"There is no going back to the past," Turtschak said, according to the statement quoted by the state news agency Ria Novosti.
"We will live together and develop this rich region together." Turchak, as secretary of the General Council, is also one of the leaders of United Russia.
The 46-year-old traveled to Cherson with the head of the Donetsk separatists, Denis Puschilin.
The T90-M is one of the most modern tanks in the world.
(Archive photo) © Alexey Maishev/Imago Images
+++ 5.30 p.m .:
According to Ukrainian media reports, a Russian frigate in the Black Sea caught fire after rocket fire.
The reports were initially not officially confirmed in either Moscow or Kyiv.
However, the Ukrainian general staff has already increased the number of allegedly sunk Russian ships by one more to a total of eleven.
"The explosion and subsequent fire occurred on board the Burevestnik project 11356 frigate, which is located near Snake Island," reported the Odessa-based medium Dumskaya.net.
According to other media reports, however, the ship that was hit by a Neptun anti-ship missile is said to be the "Admiral Makarov".
Ukraine War: Russian troops step up airstrikes
+++ 15:38:
As the Kyiv Independent reports, Russian troops have attacked the cities of Huliaipole and Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia Oblast with artillery and airstrikes.
The Ukrainian online newspaper refers to a telegram post from the Zaporizhia military administration.
Until recently, there were no active battles in the region.
+++ 2:03 p.m .:
Contrary to many assessments to the contrary, the Kremlin was satisfied with the performance of its own military in Ukraine more than ten weeks after the start of the war.
"The operation is going according to plan," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow on Friday, according to the Interfax agency.
Ukraine-News: Russia confirms massive rocket fire in Kramatorsk
+++ 11.38 a.m .:
According to their own statements, the Russian military has destroyed a large ammunition depot in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region.
"High-precision air-launched missiles destroyed a large ammunition depot of the Ukrainian Armed Forces located on the territory of the Energomashstal factory in the city of Kramatorsk," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday.
The day before, Ukrainian authorities had spoken of a massive rocket attack on the city that injured 25 people.
Ukraine-News: Hundreds freed from steel mill in Mariupol
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.
Ukraine-News: Russia shells monastery in Donbass
+++ 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.
Ukraine video: Russia continues shelling in the east
+++ 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 online newspaper Moscow Times 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 carrying out complex air operations with many aircraft, as was usual in the war, 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 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.
Ukraine News: Is Russia speculating on a military conflict with NATO?
"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.
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