Victory Chronicles
-DAY 455

Above: Kyiv put out an urgent call for ambulances ahead of the coming counteroffensive.  Poland responded within 24 hours with 26 new emergency medicine vehicles. Pictured are ambulances delivered by Poland last summer. (Solidarity Fund)

Charts above: The Bruegel Foreign Trade Tracker updated its Russia profile.  Although the Kremlin has stopped publishing most economic data, Bruegal looks at trade partner data to pull the import-export picture together.  The top chart shows Russian imports from 27 EU member countries from Jan 2019 through Mar 2023.  The bottom chart shows the same trend line with Turkey.  

Above: UK Ministry of Defence

For the past six months, the Russian military has been preparing to defend the green line on this map against Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive. With its Belgorod raid and other border incursions, Ukraine aims to force Russia to defend the entire red line pic.twitter.com/aSq3Qdcn9e

— Business Ukraine mag (@Biz_Ukraine_Mag) May 23, 2023

• Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Head Major General Kyrylo Budanov stated in an interview with Japanese Broadcasting on Tuesday that Ukraine already has the minimum of weapons it needs to launch a counteroffensive. “Many civilians are still under Russian occupation, and we cannot waste any more time. We already have a minimum of weapons and other equipment. All I can say is that it will start soon.” 
• As we enter the third day of fighting in Bilhorod Oblast, across the Ukrainian border from Sumy, both Russians sides are making opposite claims.  The “free Russia” side says that fighting is ongoing and territory is captured, while the Kremlin-aligned side says that the saboteurs have been pushed out of Russia, everything is almost back to normal. In any event, it appears that Russia’s very long border is poorly-guarded as almost all of its military and security forces are in Ukraine. 
• The New York Times provided some background on the Russian forces fighting Russia in Bilhorod, Russia.  “The Free Russia Legion, as the volunteer unit is called, was created last August to provide a way for Russians opposed to the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine to take up arms and fight alongside Ukrainians. Fighting by these anti-Kremlin Russian volunteers has been confined mostly to the front lines in Ukraine, largely in and around Bakhmut.”
• The Ukrainian Resistance Center Sprotyv called the invader border a sieve. It estimates there are about 17 thousand poorly-equipped troops in the Russian border oblasts of Kursk, Bryansk and Bilhorod, extending about 700 km (435 miles).  
• Surviving Wagner convicts who aren’t killed in combat are pardoned and sent home to commit crimes in Russia. Russian police detained a 42-year-old convict for assaulting two underage girls in Berdsk, Novosibirsk Oblast. 
• The Russian Duma dramatically broadened the list of subjects from whom external passports can be confiscated to prevent them from leaving the country. Russian authorities may confiscate travel passports from mobilized and conscripted personnel, FSB personnel, individuals with access to state secrets, persons who are facing criminal proceedings and citizens in bankruptcy. On Tuesday, the Russian chief justice told Sputnik that bankruptcy filings in the motherland are up 30% year-on-year and bad debt up 23%.

 

Video: General Staff’s Daily Video Digest with English subtitles

 

Above: Sprotyv

Above: Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces estimated enemy losses since February 24, 2022 with daily additions

ITEM	QTY	▲
Liquidated personnel	204760	+400
Tanks	3792	+3
Armored personnel vehicles	7424	+5
Artillery systems/ MLRS	3339/570	+21/5
Anti-aircraft systems	327
Aircraft/ helicopters	309/296	+0/1
Unmanned aerial vehicles	2871	+7
Cruise missiles	1015
Warships/ boats	18
Vehicles and fuel tanks	6146	+7
Special equipment	440	+7

 

Above: Avdiivka today. (Suspilne)

The Kyiv Independent summarized attacks on civilians over the last day:

• In the last 24 hours, Russian attacks were reported in nine Ukrainian oblasts – Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk. Two civilians were killed, and 17 more were injured in the Russian attacks.
• Russian troops struck Kherson Oblast in Ukraine’s south 64 times, firing 271 rounds from various weapons, the regional administration reported on May 24.The attacks killed two civilians and wounded three more in the region, as well as hit residential areas and social infrastructure facilities.
• In Donetsk Oblast, Russian attacks injured 11 civilians in five regional settlements, according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
• Russian forces hit three districts in Kharkiv Oblast, injuring two men aged 33 and 56 in Vovchansk and Kupiansk, reported Governor Oleh Syniehubov. According to the governor, the damages include houses, outbuildings, a school, office buildings, a cultural center, vehicles, and garages.
• The Russian military also shelled the town of Ochakiv, Mykolaiv on the Black Sea coast, wounding one person, Governor Vitalii Kim wrote on Telegram. The attack damaged private residences, infrastructure facilities, gas pipelines, and power lines, added Kim.

Above: Ukrainian tankers ride along the road towards their positions near Bakhmut. (Suspilne)

Above:  Maps via ISW

• The Ukrainian General Staff did not report fighting in Bakhmut City in its 1800 situational report for the first time since December 2022. Ukrainian officials stated that the pace of fighting in the Bakhmut direction has decreased amid continued Ukrainian counterattacks on Bakhmut’s flanks. Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut). Ukrainian forces maintain positions in a fortified area near the MiG-17 monument in western Bakhmut. 
• Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on May 23. Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Avdiivka, 13km north of Avdiivka near Novokalynove, and within 14km west of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Vodyane, and Pervomaiske. Ukrainian forces repelled numerous assaults on Marinka (about 24km southwest of Donetsk City). Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on attacking Avdiivka and Marinka, and reported that there were 19 combat clashes in the two areas.

Above:  The occupiers in Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia, removed a WWII tank from a war monument to be sent back home for restoration.  Video of the operation at hochu v dodomu v UA.

• Russian forces continued defensive operations in southern Ukraine ahead of the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russian forces are conducting defensive operations in the Novopavlivka and Orikhiv directions in Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian forces are actively mining the east bank of the Dnipro River and installing barricades against boats and watercraft. Geolocated footage showed that Russian forces constructed new fortifications in Crimea along the roads that lead into the peninsula.
• Crimean officials are trying to make their own Crimean Wagner-type private armies, using their “own money” to form personal forces to protect themselves against Ukrainian counteroffensives. Crimean mercenaries are paid monthly salaries of about $2,500 to $3,120 and train in southeast of Simferopol or in occupied Kherson Oblast.