Russia's Ukraine offensive: Strategically important city under massive attack - but Kyiv reports success

Created: 05/17/2022Updated: 05/17/2022 09:42

By: Cindy Boden

Lviv was attacked again on Tuesday night.

260 soldiers were evacuated from the Azovstal plant.

News ticker.

• Escalated Ukraine conflict:

  According to a governor, Ukraine still controls ten percent of

  Luhansk

  .

• Ukrainian success in Kharkiv

  : Apparently, Ukrainian troops in Kharkiv managed to advance to the Russian border.

• After weeks of blockade, around 260 Ukrainian soldiers are said to have left the Azov steelworks in Mariupol.

• This

  news ticker on the military situation in the Ukraine war

  is continuously updated.

Update from May 17, 9:20 a.m .:

Apparently, Ukrainian forces are achieving further successes in battles with Russian troops near the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

Yesterday

a Ukrainian unit was able to advance at one point in the region to the Russian border.

The city's military governor, Oleg Syniehubow, has now confirmed further advances by the Ukrainian military, as reported by the US broadcaster CNN.

Accordingly, the clashes in the direction of the city of Volchansk would continue.

"Active clashes are taking place in the towns in the north of the region," CNN quoted the governor as saying.

"The enemy" is focused on holding his position.

The city of Volchansk represents an important supply line for Russian troops involved in the Donbass offensive.

Ukraine War: Successes around Sjewerodonetsk - Russian troops pushed back

Update from May 17, 8:30 a.m .:

The Ukrainian military says it has thrown back Russian troops in front of the city of Sievjerodonetsk in the east of the country.

"Near the village of Syrotyne, the Russian conquerors suffered losses and retreated," the General Staff said in its situation report on Tuesday.

Syrotyne is four kilometers south of Sievjerodonetsk.

The Russian troops were also unsuccessful in several other directions.

The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajdaj, also reported heavy fighting in the area around the city.

In the suburbs of Girske and Zolotoye, several houses were destroyed by artillery shells.

But the Russians should have withdrawn there too.

"Enemy casualties are high," Hajdaj wrote on his Telegram channel.

The information could not be checked independently.

The Sieverodonetsk-Lysychansk agglomeration is the last region in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast that is still controlled by pro-government troops.

The pro-Russian rebels and the Russian army have now conquered around 90 percent of the area.

They've been trying to encircle and take over the cities for weeks.

The city of Sievjerodonetsk in particular is considered strategically important.

Ukraine-Russia War: Russian border region reports new shelling

Update from May 17, 7:50 a.m .: 

In the western Russian region of Kursk on the border with Ukraine, several buildings were set on fire and damaged, according to the authorities.

"Today, at five o'clock in the morning, the border village of Alexeyevka in the Glushkovo district was shelled with heavy weapons," Governor Roman Starovoit said on Tuesday.

Accordingly, three houses, a school and a vehicle were damaged.

There were no injuries.

According to Russian information, it is an attack from Ukraine.

The fire was returned by the border guards.

Initially, there was no comment from Ukraine.

After the start of the Russian war of aggression at the end of February, Russian areas near the border have also come under fire in recent weeks.

Ukraine-Russia-News: Lviv near Poland again under Russian fire

Update from May 17, 6:30 a.m.:

The area around the city of Lviv in western Ukraine was again the target of an air raid.

The attack was aimed at a military facility in the Yavoriv district on the border with Poland, local military chief Maxim Kositsky wrote on Telegram.

Mayor Andriy Sadowy emphasized that there was no information about rocket hits in the city and thanked the air defense.

In mid-March, a Russian airstrike hit the military training area in Javoriv, ​​killing 35 people according to Ukrainian sources.

In Yavoriv, ​​Ukrainian soldiers had trained with Western instructors in recent years.

According to the authorities, at least 19 civilians have been killed in the contested eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

"As a result of the shelling of Sieverodonetsk, at least ten people died," military governor of the Luhansk region Serhiy Hayday told the Telegram news service.

Due to the attacks, however, it was extremely difficult to check the location.

Nine more civilians were killed in neighboring Donetsk Oblast, according to local military governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Six other people were injured.

Ukrainian-Russian War: 260 Ukrainian soldiers have left Azov Steelworks

Update from May 16, 11:37 p.m.:

 According to the authorities, after weeks of blockade, a good 260 Ukrainian soldiers left the Azov steelworks in Mariupol.

Among them were 53 seriously injured, said the Ukrainian general staff on Facebook on Monday.

211 other Ukrainian fighters were also brought to the town of Olenivka, which was occupied by Russian troops.

They are said to return later in a prisoner exchange.

The seriously injured were transported to the city of Novoazovsk.

The evacuation of the other defenders of the Azovstal Steelworks is still in progress.

"Thanks to the Mariupol defenders, we got critically important time to form reserves, redeploy forces and get help from our partners," Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar wrote on Facebook.

All tasks to defend Mariupol have been completed.

It was not possible for Azovstal to fight free.

The most important thing now is to save the lives of the Mariupol defenders.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized in his daily video address that Ukraine needs its heroes from Mariupol alive.

The port city of Mariupol was surrounded shortly after the Russian invasion in February.

Russian troops gradually took control, but the last Ukrainian defenders of the city holed up in the huge steel works with several underground floors.

The Russian troops did not risk any storming attempts, but blocked all accesses.

Hundreds of civilians had already been evacuated from the factory premises in the past few days.

There were long negotiations about the withdrawal of the soldiers, some of whom were seriously injured, and who had hardly any supplies or water left.

Update from May 16, 9:27 p.m

.: In the Ukraine war, military personnel from Ukraine should have left the Azovstal plant in Mariupol in about a dozen buses in the evening.

This is reported by BR24, citing local Reuters journalists.

According to information from Russia, the injured should be evacuated on Monday.

Ukraine had not yet confirmed this.

According to the Ukrainian news magazine Kyiv Independent, at least ten people were killed in a rocket attack on the city of Sievierodonetsk on Monday.

This was reported by the governor of the Luhansk region.

Ukraine war: Military report from Kyiv on Monday evening - Russia's attacks in the east largely stopped

Update from May 16, 6:24 p.m

.: The military situation report from Kiev on the Ukraine war on Monday evening: "By shelling enemy depots stationed in the city of Izyum, the defense forces destroyed large stocks of ammunition," said the Ukrainian general staff .

Russian attack attempts in the east have largely been stopped.

Advances in the direction of Sievjerodonetsk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Kurakhove and Avdiivka in the Donbass were repulsed.

North of Kharkiv, the Russian troops went on the defensive and tried to stop the advance of the Ukrainian forces towards the border.

The Russians were preparing a new offensive near the small town of Izyum, south of Kharkiv.

This information from Kyiv could not be independently verified.

According to the report, Mariupol continues to be heavily shelled by artillery and air force: "The enemy's main efforts in Mariupol are aimed at blocking and destroying our units at the Azovstal plant." Reports from Russia that the Ukrainian Azovstal fighters had been evacuated let the Ukraine still uncommented.

War in Ukraine/Military: Russian attack near Kharkiv is said to have used dangerous chemical (ammonium nitrate).

Update from May 16, 4:36 p.m

.: A Russian attack hit a warehouse with highly flammable ammonium nitrate in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine.

The governor of neighboring Donetsk region shared a photo of orange smoke over fields on Telegram, but added that the blast "poses no danger to the local population".

The information could not initially be independently verified.

The dangerous chemical ammonium nitrate was one of the causes of a devastating explosion in Beirut in 2020.

Ukraine war: Injured fighters are evacuated from Mariupol plant, according to Moscow

Update from May 16, 3:28 p.m

.: Will injured fighters be taken out of the Mariupol Steel Plant?

According to Moscow, an agreement has now been reached with Kyiv.

According to the dpa and AFP, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the evacuation was achieved with "blocked representatives of the Ukrainian military".

A ceasefire is in effect.

The injured were to be taken to "medical facilities" in the Novoazovsk region controlled by Russian and pro-Russian fighters.

Initially, there was no official confirmation of this in Ukraine.

The government in Kyiv had always demanded that the injured be transferred to territory controlled by Ukraine or to a third country.

Already in the morning, pro-Russian separatists reported that the first Ukrainian fighters had surrendered and left the steelworks with white flags.

This was later denied by the Ukrainian side.

According to Kyiv, around 1,000 fighters are said to have entrenched themselves on the site of the Azovstal steelworks.

Putin repeatedly called on them to lay down their arms and surrender.

They refused because they did not want to go into Russian captivity.

Ukraine War News: Kyiv reports new figures on troop losses from Moscow

Update from May 16, 12:00 p.m .:

The Ukrainian general staff has published new figures on Russian losses in Ukraine.

According to this, around 27,700 Russian soldiers have been killed so far.

The General Staff also claimed the destruction of 1,228 tanks, 2,974 armored personnel carriers, 577 artillery systems and 195 multiple rocket launchers.

In addition, 89 air defense systems, 200 aircraft, 165 helicopters, 427 drones, 97 cruise missiles and 13 boats of the Russian army were destroyed.

The information cannot be independently verified.

Ukraine war: Rocket attack on Odessa - Russia claims attacks on Ukrainian military

Update from May 16, 11 a.m.:

According to Ukrainian military information, a tourist accommodation was destroyed in a Russian rocket attack near the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa.

The Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported at least three civilians injured.

In addition, fire broke out.

The target was therefore a previously attacked and damaged bridge over the mouth of the Dniester River.

There was initially no confirmation from the Russian side.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow reported more than 100 airstrikes on military infrastructure in Ukraine on Monday night.

In addition, rockets were fired at more than 300 targets, said ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

This information could not be independently verified.

Ukraine War: Russia's New Eastern Offensive?

- Ukraine is preparing for new attacks

Update from May 16, 7:35 a.m .:

Ukraine is preparing for a new Russian offensive in the east of the country.

After the withdrawal of Russian units around Kharkiv, more soldiers are now being transferred to the Donbass, said Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich.

Ukraine is preparing for "new attempts at aggression" by the Russian army in Donbass aimed at "increasing its movements to southern Ukraine," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message.

"The occupiers still do not want to admit that they are at an impasse and that their so-called special operation has already failed," he added.

War in Ukraine: Ukrainian success in Kharkiv - advance to the Russian border

Update from May 16, 6:25 a.m .:

Ukrainian troops report a symbolic success in their counter-offensive in the eastern Kharkiv region: they advanced at least to the border with Russia at one point.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released a video showing a dozen soldiers next to a border post in the national colors of blue and yellow on Monday night.

According to the information, they belong to a volunteer brigade from the city of Kharkiv.

The Ukrainian military had already reported in the past few days that they were gradually pushing back Russian troops near Kharkiv.

Russia had already withdrawn its troops in northern Ukraine after being stopped in front of the capital, Kyiv.

Russia is currently concentrating on the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where pro-Russian separatists have controlled some areas with help from Moscow since 2014.

Ukraine War: Russian attacks on Donetsk - three civilians killed

First report:

Kiev - Despite heavy Russian attacks in the Ukraine war, according to the regional governor, the Ukrainian army still controls around ten percent of the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

In particular, the Russians have not been able to take the outskirts of the cities of Rubishne, Sievjerodonetsk and Lysychansk so far, Serhiy Hajday said on Sunday (May 15).

Moscow said last week that pro-Russian separatists, with the help of the Russian army, had advanced to the administrative borders of Luhansk just eleven weeks after the war began.

Hajdaj called these statements "fantasy" at the time.

In the Donetsk region, also in eastern Ukraine, three civilians were killed and 13 others injured in Russian attacks on Sunday, according to the regional administration.

Ukraine War: British speak of Russian army suffering heavy losses in river crossing

Meanwhile, near the village of Bilohorivka, Russian forces have been trying unsuccessfully to cross a river for three weeks.

According to the governor of the Luhansk region, Russian troops suffered heavy losses of soldiers and equipment.

From intercepted telephone conversations, the Ukrainian side allegedly learned "that an entire Russian battalion refused to attack because they saw what was happening."

Aerial photos showed dozens of destroyed armored vehicles on the riverbank, as well as wrecked pontoon bridges.

The British Ministry of Defense said the Russian army suffered heavy casualties after Ukrainian forces repulsed their attempt to cross the river.

The maneuver speaks "for the pressure under which the Russian commanders are to advance their operations in eastern Ukraine".

You can read reports on negotiations in the Ukraine war in this news ticker.

War in Ukraine: Russia apparently plans to send up to 2,500 reservists

In addition, the question always comes up as to whom Russia and President Vladimir Putin, about whom some oligarchs are now fueling rumors of cancer, is sending to Ukraine.

As

wrote on Twitter on Sunday evening, Russia is planning to send up to 2,500 reservists to the neighboring country.

At least that's what the Ukrainian General Staff reports.

The new recruits would be trained on various training grounds in Russia.