May 8, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine has moved here.

Russia's launched a wave of strikes on Ukraine early Monday in what Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko called its “most massive attack."

The mayor said the drone attack did not cause any deaths, “but five people were injured in two districts of the city.” Other attacks were recorded in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Kherson areas.

Here are the latest developments:

US to announce new aid package to Ukraine: The United States is set to announce a $1.2 billion aid package to Ukraine as early as Tuesday, according to a US official familiar with the package. It comes at a critical point with Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces looming. The package will include drones, artillery ammunition and air defense missiles as well as other capabilities, the official said. It comes days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $300 million security assistance package for Kyiv.

Wagner forces receive more ammunition: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private Russian military group Wagner, said preliminary information indicates that his fighters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut have started to receive more ammunition. Prigozhin had repeatedly complained that his units were not receiving enough ammunition from Russia’s defense establishment. Last week, he announced they would withdraw from Bakhmut — a threat he now appears to be rowing back on. 

Kremlin-backed officials mobilize Russians in Mariupol: Kremlin-backed authorities in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol are in the process of mobilizing residents who have Russian passports, the exiled city council claimed on Telegram. Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, which administers Mariupol, signed a decree allowing the mobilization of Russian citizens in the occupied region on March 31. 

Parts of Russian administration leave Skadovsk: A significant part of the Russian-installed administration of Skadovsk left the occupied city on Sunday, Ukrainian military officials said. The activities of Skadovsk’s district and city administrations were “suspended,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its daily update. On Saturday night, “the occupiers loaded documentation, office equipment, and other property of state institutions into vehicles,” before leaving with their families on Sunday morning, Ukrainian military officials said. Skadovsk sits on the Black Sea. 

The United States is set to announce a $1.2 billion aid package to Ukraine as early as Tuesday, according to a US official familiar with the package. It comes at a critical point with Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces looming. 

The package will include drones, artillery ammunition and air defense missiles as well as other capabilities, the official said.

The package — first reported by the Associated Press — will fall under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which means it will be contracted and purchased from manufacturers instead of pulled directly from Defense Department stocks in a drawdown.

Instead of supplying Ukraine with the weapons it currently needs, USAI packages are intended to create a medium and long-term supply for Ukraine.

Last week, the Pentagon announced its 37th drawdown package for Ukraine since August 2021. The $300 million package included additional ammunition for the HIMARS rocket system, artillery and tank ammunition, anti-tank weapons and more. 

Russia's wave of strikes on Ukraine early Monday was its “most massive attack with kamikaze drones," Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

“I visited a high-rise building that was hit by fragments of a Russian drone at night,” Klitschko wrote in a statement on Telegram. “Last night, the barbarians staged the most massive attack with kamikaze drones. Almost 60 'Shaheds' were launched,” more than half of which targeted Kyiv, according to Klitschko.   

Other attacks were recorded in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Kherson areas.

The Ukrainian military said it repelled the assault on the capital city, the latest in Moscow’s efforts to wear down its air defense system. According to Kyiv's mayor, “36 drones flew to the capital” but were shot down by air defense forces.

“However, debris from several drones damaged some social facilities and a residential high-rise building in Sviatoshyn district,” Klitschko said.

The mayor said the drone attack did not cause any deaths, “but five people were injured in two districts of the city.” 

“Three of them were in high-rise buildings. Two victims were hospitalized, one of them underwent surgery. Doctors say that there is no threat to their lives,” he added.

Shahed drones are manufactured in Iran and have been frequently deployed by Russian forces in Ukraine. 

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private Russian military group Wagner, said on Monday that preliminary information indicates that his fighters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut have started to receive more ammunition.  

“Ammunition supplies, according to preliminary data, we continue to receive. I haven't seen it in person yet,” Prigozhin said in a voice memo posted to his Telegram channel late on Monday. 

Prigozhin has repeatedly complained that his Wagner units are not receiving enough ammunition from Russia’s defense establishment. Last week, he announced they would withdraw from Bakhmut — a threat he now appears to be rowing back on. 

Earlier Monday, a Ukrainian commander in Bakhmut said his unit faces “constant” shelling and had seen no evidence of the Russian ammunition shortage that Prigozhin had claimed.

A significant part of the Russian-installed administration of Skadovsk left the occupied city on Sunday, Ukrainian military officials said. 

The activities of Skadovsk’s district and city administrations were “suspended,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its daily update.

On Saturday night, “the occupiers loaded documentation, office equipment, and other property of state institutions into vehicles,” before leaving with their families on Sunday morning, Ukrainian military officials said.

The General Staff claims the Russians planned to transport the “documents and looted property," by sea, further into Russian-held territory. 

Skadovsk sits on the Black Sea. 

The statement said that similar activity was occurring in the nearby villages of Krasne, Shevchenko, Shyroke, Ulianivka and Petrivka, as well as in Mykhailivka — some 28 kilometers away. 

Kremlin-backed authorities in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol are in the process of mobilizing residents who have Russian passports, the exiled city council claimed on Telegram. 

“Mobilization has begun in Mariupol. This is reported by the city residents themselves,” the statement read, adding that men working in the public sector were the first to receive referrals from the military commissariat for medical examinations.

The Telegram post included a photo of a document which the authors said is a referral, received by a resident. 

"Draft boards have started working in Mariupol. The occupiers are already looking for citizens who do not fulfill their 'military obligations'. The enemy plans to conscript men until August," said Vadym Boichenko, the exiled Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol.

Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, which administers Mariupol, signed a decree allowing the mobilization of Russian citizens in the occupied region on March 31. 

The Ukrainian Red Cross suspended operations in Odesa after a Russian missile struck its warehouse in the southern port city.

“As a result of a missile strike in Odesa region on May 8, the leased warehouse of the Odesa regional organization of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society with an area of 1,000 square meters was completely destroyed,” the Ukrainian Red Cross said in a statement on Monday.

The organization went on to say there had been no casualties.

Russia launched a wave of drone strikes on Kyiv Monday, and other attacks were also recorded in Kharkiv and Kherson areas. The Ukrainian military said it repelled the assault on the capital city, the latest in Moscow’s efforts to wear down its air defense system.

Here are the latest developments:

• China opposed proposed European Union sanctions to companies selling to Russia: China's foreign ministry said it opposes any measures against trade, based on its relationship with Russia. This comes in response to reports of proposed sanctions by the European Union on Chinese companies over their alleged involvement in supporting Russia's war machine. The latest round of sanctions against Russia will focus on how to effectively cut off ways for Moscow to bypass any existing European sanctions, the EU Commission announced Monday. 
• Civilian evacuation of Zaporizhzhia has caused fuel and internet issues, mayor says: The evacuation of some civilians from Russian-occupied towns on the front lines in the Zaporizhzhia region has led to fuel shortages and problems with ATMs and the internet, according to Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov. While Orlov is not currently in the occupied region, he said the evacuation announcement led to “if not panic, then a mood close to it."
• No evidence of alleged Wagner ammo shortage as Bakhmut shelling is nonstop, official says: A Ukrainian commander in the eastern city of Bakhmut said his unit faces “constant” shelling and they have seen no evidence of the Russian ammunition shortage that Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has claimed. "The intensity of the shelling is only increasing," Ihor Shepetin, a battalion commander in the territorial defense brigade, told Ukrainian TV.

A Ukrainian commander in the eastern city of Bakhmut said his unit faces “constant” shelling and they have seen no evidence of the Russian ammunition shortage that Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has claimed.

“The enemy is trying to carry out these attacks 24/7… We have not noticed that they have a shortage of ammunition, as they claim. I think it's the opposite. The intensity of the shelling is only increasing," Ihor Shepetin, a battalion commander in the territorial defense brigade, told Ukrainian TV.

Prigozhin, whose Wagner troops have spearheaded the fight to take the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, has repeatedly claimed his fighters lack ammunition. Last week, he said they would withdraw from the area – a threat he has now apparently backtracked from.

Shepetin said Prigozhin’s statements were an effort to "mislead" the Ukrainian military in the face of his own “enormous losses”.

“I think that the enemy is already desperate. He is using all means at his disposal to try to drive our defense forces out of Bakhmut. But the enemy is not succeeding and will not succeed,” Shepetin said, adding that the Ukrainians were not in danger of being encircled and – while they had “some logistical problems” – were still able to evacuate the wounded and receive supplies of ammunition.

Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, agreed, saying in a separate TV interview that "the Russians have no shortage of ammunition. This is absolutely not true." He added that Ukrainian positions had been shelled more than four hundred times in the past 24 hours and enemy troops were using “more than 25,000 shells per day” on average around the eastern cities of Bakhmut, Lyman and Kupyansk.

“He [Prigozhin] comes up with this nonsense about the shell crisis. However, his main problem is the constant annihilation of personnel by our defense forces. And hence, he is unable to replenish personnel because he cannot recruit people from prisons,” Cherevatyi said.

Cherevatyi claimed that Russia had taken some 20,000 casualties in the Bakhmut area over the past nine months because of Wagner’s “meat grinder” tactic of fighting.