WAR IN UKRAINE: May 1, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 432
Overnight a Russian missile strike in the 4am hour resulted in person dead in Kherson region and 25 people - including three children - injured in Dnipropetrovsk. 19 high-rise buildings, 25 private houses, 6 schools and preschools, and 5 shops were damaged. In all, Ukraine's armed forces said 15 of 18 missiles fired were destroyed by air defence.
Another journalist has been killed in the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Mukan was killed while serving with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Bakhmut. Pre-war he worked as a journalist/editor at Hazeta po-ukrainsky (Ukrainian Newspaper), Kraina (Country) magazine and Gazeta.ua. He leaves behind a wife & 2 sons
Idle bluster or potentially game-changing threat? Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russian paramilitary group Wagner, has threatened to withdraw his troops from the embattled Ukrainian city of Bakhmut if ammunition supply problems are not resolved.
Russia has initiated “increasingly draconian initiatives” to improve the discipline of its troops in Ukraine, according to the British Defense Ministry. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview he would fight “to the death” if Russians stormed the headquarters in Kyiv. "I know how to shoot,” he said - VOA
During a visit to Hungary, Pope Francis spoke with Ukrainian refugees and called for a culture of charity in a country where the nationalist government has implemented firm anti-immigration policies.
Since October 2022, Russia has carried out 33 massive attacks on energy infrastructure facilities, firing more than 1,000 drones and missiles at them, Deputy Energy Minister of Ukraine Farid Safarov said on the air of the national telethon, Ukrinform reports. “Since October and over the next six months, the Ukrainian energy sector has suffered a lot of damage. The terrorist state carried out more than 33 massive attacks, more than 1000 drones and missiles were fired at energy facilities, 270 of which hit CHPs, thermal power plants, hydroelectric power plants, and so on. Twenty-four generation facilities, about half of the transmission system substations, and 43% of the trunk power grids were hit. In most cases, these hits occurred several times,” reported Safarov - UKRINFORM
A Ukrainian military official called the explosion and fire at a fuel storage depot in Sevastopol “God’s punishment,” a response to a wave of missile strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine that killed at least 25 civilians a day earlier - RFE/RL
The Russian military reported that Alexey Kuzmenkov, former deputy chief of the National Guard, has been appointed as Russia’s new deputy defense minister responsible for logistics. Kuzmenkov replaced Mikhail Mizintsev, who held the position since September 2022. The Defense Ministry did not specify the reason for Mizintsev’s dismissal. Ukrainian military sources have claimed that Mizintsev was personally in command of the siege of Mariupol, a brutal military operation that led to the city’s near-complete destruction, earning Mizintsev the reputation of “the butcher of Mariupol” - Meduza