WAR IN UKRAINE: May 25, 2023

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 455

  • US officials have picked up chatter amongst Ukrainian officials blaming each other for a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month, contributing to a US assessment that a Ukrainian group may have been responsible, sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN. The intercepts include some members of Ukraine’s military and intelligence bureaucracy speculating that Ukrainian special operations forces conducted the operation. The chatter, combined with other intercepted communications of Russian officials blaming Ukraine for the attack and wondering how it happened, has led US officials to consider the possibility that a Ukrainian group was behind the incident on May 3. On that morning, two drones flew up toward the Kremlin’s Senate Palace and struck the top of the building.

  • The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group has announced that its forces have started withdrawing from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Yevgeny Prigozhin has vowed to transfer control of the city to the Russian army by 1 June, but Kyiv says it still controls pockets of the city - BBC

  • Separately, Prigozhin, has warned that Russia could face a "revolution" and lose its war in Ukraine unless the country's "elites" fully commit to the fight and put the country "into North Korea mode," with martial law imposed, to achieve results on the front lines. In a lengthy video interview with a pro-war, pro-Kremlin blogger, Prigozhin lashed out against Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his daughter Ksenia, a sports executive whose New Year wartime vacation in Dubai drew ire from the Russian public. "The children of elites… allow themselves to lead a public, fat, carefree life," Prigozhin fumed, "while the children of others arrive back shredded to pieces in zinc coffins” - CBS

  • A Russian woman living in the U.S. reportedly wrote “Bakhmut is ours, thank you Wagner” on her garage in order to upset the Ukrainian neighbors that live on the same street as her. The Ukrainians tell her “how can you write that after so many children killed?”

  • The U.S. State Department on Monday said Russia's Wagner Group is trying to obscure its efforts to acquire military equipment for use in Ukraine, adding that Washington has been informed the mercenary force is seeking to move those acquisitions through Mali to aid Russia in its war. Wagner is willing to use false paperwork for such transactions, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing - Reuters

  • In response to a Russian court extending the pretrial detention of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich by three months on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement of condemnation: “CPJ strongly condemns the extension of the detention of Evan Gershkovich, who has already been held in a Russian prison for nearly two months for simply doing his job as a journalist,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Russian authorities should immediately release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting members of the press for their work.” On Tuesday, May 23, a Moscow court held a closed-door hearing and granted the Russian Federal Security Service’s request to extend Gershkovich’s detention until August 30. The hearing was not announced in advance and lasted less than an hour

  • Part of the beaches in Odesa will be open for the public. The authorities of Odesa proposed a set of measures that will allow citizens to relax on the coast from Lanzheron Beach to the 16th Big Fountain Station. The final decision to open the beaches will be made after June 5. In February 2022 all beaches were closed due to security concerns and the presence of sea mines.