As the war enters its 433rd day, we take a look at the main developments.
Here is the situation as it stands on Tuesday, May 2, 2023:
Fighting
- The White House has estimated that 20,000 Russian soldiers have died in the past five months of fighting.
- Russia’s defence ministry has said it carried out overnight missile attacks on Ukrainian military sites, including weapons depots and ammunition factories.
- The Ukrainian air force has shot down 15 out of 18 missiles fired across Kyiv and Dnipro in the early hours of Monday, the military said.
- Missile attacks on the eastern city of Pavlohrad have killed two people and injured 40, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The president said a 14-year-old boy was also killed close to his school when it was hit by a bomb in the Chernihiv region, close to the Russian border.
- The US ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink, has condemned Russia’s missile attacks as “barbaric”.
- The head of the Wagner Group has appealed to Russia’s defence ministry to increase ammunition shipments to his troops fighting in Bakhmut, Ukraine. In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Yevgeny Prigozhin said he needed at least 300 tonnes of artillery shells a day in his bid to take the city.
- General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, has said the situation in Bakhmut remained “difficult”, but soldiers had launched a counterattack in some parts of the ruined city.
Diplomacy
- Pope Francis has disclosed the Vatican is involved in a secret peace mission to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
- Zelenskyy has spoken to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and discussed defence cooperation and increased sanctions.
- Zelenskyy has thanked New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for participating in training the Ukrainian military.
- Ukraine’s grain exports totalled 3.62 million tonnes last month compared with 923,000 tonnes in April 2022, when all the country’s Black Sea ports were blocked because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.
- Ukrainian players have said they would not participate in this month’s World Judo Championships in Qatar following the International Judo Federation’s decision to readmit Russians and Belarusians as neutrals.
