On the 75th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which coincides with Russia’s national holiday of Victory Day, Moscow has still not reached the second version of its military goals in Ukraine. Russian families have submitted 32 000 applications to find out the whereabouts of soldiers. The besieged defenders of Mariupol have said that they have 600 wounded persons and no adequate medical help available, Belarusian Nexta TV and Ukrainian public broadcaster Ukrinform report.
As Russia celebrated its Victory Day on Monday, May 9, its troops in Ukraine had not made significant gains in the Donbas offensive in neighbouring Ukraine. Here are maps of the current situation on the Donbas frontline by American think tank Study of War.
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— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) May 8, 2022
Still Russian veterans in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg were seen marching with the letter ‘Z’ on their uniforms. Russia uses ‘Z’ as a uniting sign for Russian troops in Ukraine.
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— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 9, 2022
Azovstal’s situation with wounded soldiers
Fortunately, the UN-Red Cross operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel works, the last Ukrainian-controlled bastion in the south-eastern city of Mariupol, has been ended.
For the Azov Regiment and other soldiers in Azovstal, this means more Russian attacks on the ground and from war planes. From the siege, Deputy Commander of the Azov Regiment, Captain Sviatoslav Palamar was interviewed by Ukrainian TV channel 24 Kanal. According to him he situation at the Azovstal metallurgical plant has become critical as wounded soldiers are dying with no proper medical assistance available.
«The situation is difficult, critical. There are not enough medicines. We no longer have surgical tools. There is no opportunity to provide qualified medical care,» Palamar noted, adding that the exact number of fallen soldiers remaining under the rubble remained unknown.
«I won’t announce the number of soldiers killed in action. Believe me, we are talking about hundreds of Ukrainian servicemen. About 600 are wounded, but this figure is growing every day, as well as the number of those killed. We do not even know how many bodies remain under the rubble. I believe that the Russian side also needs to take the bodies of their soldiers. This requires a ceasefire and an agreement between the two sides to collect the bodies of the fallen forces. It’s getting warm outside. The bodies are starting to decompose and poison everything,» explained the Deputy Commander of the Azov Regiment.
Russian families looking for soldiers in their thousands
From the start of the invasion on February 24, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine has received a total of over 32,000 appeals in which the relatives of Russian soldiers who had gone missing in the war with Ukraine ask about their fate.
Ukrinform quoted Viktor Andrusiv, the adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, as saying this on 24 Kanal.
«I would not say that this is such a mass phenomenon at the moment [for relatives of Russian soldiers to send such inquiries]. Indeed, they were filed en masse in early March, and now it is a routine thing. Indeed, we received about 12,000 appeals, perhaps even more, to our hotline, which had been set up exactly for Russian citizens, and more than 20,000 appeals filed through a chatbot set up on Telegram,» the adviser said.
Answering the question, what the Russians sought to learn from the Ukrainian authorities, the official noted that they were filing contact information of their loved ones – husbands and sons who went into Ukraine as part of the invasion forces – with whom they had lost contact.
Zelenskyy awards mine-search dog
Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded a state decoration to the terrier Patron employed by Ukrainian authorities in the demining of Ukrainian territories liberated from Russian troops.
Zelenskyy also met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kyiv.
Here is a video address by Zelenskyy on Instagram with English subtitles.