KEEP CALM AND KEEP FIGHTING: WAGNER STAYS IN BAKHMUT

The public scandal between the Wagner PMC and military officials in the Russian Defense Ministry seems to have come to its end. The decision of the head of the PMC to withdraw his fighters from the city of Bakhmut because of the artificially created ammunition shortage became the final point of the internal struggle between some Russian elites. On May 7, Evgeny Prigozhin made another appeal to the public revealing that the Wagner units will finally receive the necessary amount of ammunition and they will not leave the city 90% of which is already under Russian control. In addition, Army General Sergei Surovikin, who previously commanded the entire Special Military Operation in Ukraine, will coordinate the interaction between the PMC and the Ministry of Defense. Despite the lack of military supplies and the public scandal, Wagner fighters did not stop their offensive in the city. Assault detachments of the Wagner PMC are storming the last Ukrainian positions in the western quarters of the city. The Ukrainian military is in control of an area measuring about 2 square kilometers. Russian fighters are storming the multi-storey building area along Yubileynaya Street advancing from two flanks; Ukrainian militants are forced to leave the apartment buildings, heavily shelled by artillery. From the northern direction, Russian units broke through the Ukrainian defenses along Pobedy and Tolbukhin Streets. Amid the ongoing heavy artillery duels, the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration also remains one of the main targets of the ongoing Russian airstrikes. Last night Russian warplanes again struck Chasov Yar with heavy FAB bombs. The town is located on a hill southwest of Bakhmut. Ukrainian artillery deployed there is firing at the advancing Wagner units in the west of Bakhmut. In general, on May 8, the Russian Air Force inflicted heavy blows on logistics centers and areas of concentration of the Ukrainian reinforcements along the front lines, as well as in the deep Ukrainian rear. The strikes hit targets in Sumy, Chernihiv and Zhytomyr regions, as well as the regions of Zaporozhie, Dnepropetrovsk and Kirovograd. Also at night, strikes were carried out on Zatoka and the Shkolny airfield in the Odessa region. As a result, warehouses, likely housing weapons and UAVs, were destroyed. Explosions thundered in the capital of Ukraine. In the Solomenskiy district of Kiev, a diesel fuel tank with a capacity of 5 tons was damaged. Ukrainian Air Defence Forces continue to shoot down their targets over densely populated areas. A fire broke out in another multi-storey building after the wreckage fell on the civilians. The UAV was intercepted by Ukrainian air defence forces deployed on the roof of the neighboring apartment building. Armed with NATO’s advanced air defence systems, the Ukrainian military is yet to learn how to protect itself by shooting down their targets on approach to the cities without killing civilians.