Ukraine goes on the counteroffensive in Kharkiv as Russians fall back
Ukrainian forces have pushed the enemy within 10km of the Russian border, and continue to thwart Russian attacks along the line of contact
Week May 4 – 10
Ukraine moved onto the counteroffensive during the 11th week of Russia’s war, taking back towns to the north and east of Kharkiv, in east Ukraine. According to some reports, Russian forces were retreating to regroup around defensive positions less than 10km from the Russian border, with Ukrainian units in hot pursuit.
“This Ukrainian operation is developing into a successful, broader counteroffensive—as opposed to the more localized counterattacks that Ukrainian forces have conducted throughout the war to secure key terrain and disrupt Russian offensive operations,” says the Institute for the Study of War.
“Ukrainian forces are notably retaking territory along a broad arc around Kharkiv rather than focusing on a narrow thrust, indicating an ability to launch larger-scale offensive operations than we have observed so far in the war.”
Reflecting increased confidence, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time outlined strict conditions on May 6 to enter peace talks with Russia, including a withdrawal of Russian forces to pre-February 24 borders, the return of nearly six million refugees, membership in the European Union and accountability for those Russians who committed war crimes.
These remarks were a far cry from those Zelenskyy made to the AP on April 10. “No one wants to negotiate with a person or people who tortured this nation,” Zelenskyy said. But “we don’t want to lose opportunities, if we have them, for a diplomatic solution.”
Elsewhere the war seemed to have reached a stalemate. Nowhere did Russia score a significant advance.
In Zaporizhia, in the country’s south, locals reported that a Russian unit shot up 20 of its vehicles to avoid combat duty.
Quo vadis Putin?
The unexpected difficulty of seizing Ukraine has raised questions about how long Russia will commit lives and money. Even Russian president Vladimir Putin’s only military ally, Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko, told the AP on May 5, “I feel like this operation has dragged on.”
US director of national intelligence Avril Haines told a Congressional committee that Putin “is preparing for a prolonged conflict… moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory.”
CIA director William Burns said Putin “doesn’t believe he can afford to lose” in Ukraine. “I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress.”
But there are limits to Putin’s stamina, says Dr. Emmanuel Karagiannis, reader in international security at King's College London.
“Since 1991, almost all inter-state wars have lasted weeks or months. Given the intensity of Western sanctions and the number of Russian casualties, Moscow cannot afford to continue the war for years,” he told Al Jazeera.
The European Commission unveiled a sixth round of sanctions on May 4, including “a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined,” in Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen’s words to European Parliament, by the end of the year.
The US House of Representatives is preparing to approve a new, $49.8bn package of military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.
“Western military support for Ukraine has been a game-changing factor which Moscow apparently did not anticipate in its strategy. The Russian army was ill-prepared for such a long campaign and now suffers massive losses,” Karagiannis said.
Mariupol
The only good news for Russia during the week was that its forces finally began to storm the tunnels under the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol, where at least a thousand Ukrainian marines refuse to surrender. Russia has bombed the plant from the air and using ground artillery, but hadn’t risked the potentially high casualties of close-quarters combat.
On May 5 Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, told Hromadske news service, “The Azovstal plant has been actively stormed for three days now. Orcs [sic] broke into the plant, fighting is underway.” He sent out a message via Telegram saying, “Give the opportunity to pick up the bodies of soldiers to that Ukrainians can say goodbye to their heroes.”
The head of Mariupol patrol police, Mykhailo Vershinin, said the defenders’ perimeter was shrinking and the wounded were piling up.
On May 8 Palamar implied that defeat may come soon. “We will continue to fight as long as we are alive to repel the Russian occupiers,” he told an online conference. “We don’t have much time; we are coming under intense shelling.”
The battle for Mariupol has become emblematic of Ukraine’s spirit. Removing the last pocket of resistance would be a symbolic victory for Putin, as well as enabling him to claim the entire littoral of the Sea of Azov.
Odessa
If Mariupol falls, Odessa will be Ukraine’s last major port on the Black Sea. Russian missiles have disabled its airport runway and severed road connections north to Kiev and east to Transnistria. But during the 11th week of war, this predominantly Russian-speaking city came under indiscriminatory missile fire.
On May 8, Spyros Boubouras was having lunch at a restaurant with his brother and parents, when a missile destroyed a house 150m away. The family dived into a nearby basement for shelter. “There was no military target there,” says Boubouras. “They were holiday homes.”
Then on Monday night, Boubouras heard the twin explosions of missiles destroying a shopping centre across town. “It’s 10km from our house, but we heard it quite loudly. A friend of mine lives 500m from the shopping centre. All of his windows were blown out. It was a huge shopping centre and it was completely demolished,” he told Al Jazeera.
Ukrainian forces are fighting fierce battles in Mikolaiv, 180km east of Odessa, sparing Odessa daily contact with the war until now, but “when people hear sirens now, they immediately try to find a basement,” says Boubouras, a Greek whose family has run a construction business there for the past 25 years.
Asked why the family hasn’t repatriated to Greece, Boubouras says, “That is what Russia wants – to empty the cities. We will leave when we want to, not when Russia wants us to.”
Despite the war, Odessa remains an oasis of tolerance, says Boubouras. “I’ve never come across Ukrainians having antipathy towards the Russians… even during these eight years that there’s war in the Donbas and the Crimea is occupied. At work there was never discrimination,” he said.
Asked what Odessa’s Russians think of Putin’s invasion, he said, “They are 100% against this war.”
Timeline: Week 11 of Russia’s war in Ukraine
May 4
Ukrainian and Russian reports agree that a Ukrainian counteroffensive north and east of Kharkiv has pushed Russian troops 40km back from the city, in the first major Ukrainian success since winning the battle for Kiev. Russian forces launch several unsuccessful attacks in the eastern Donbas region.
In Mariupol, Russian troops reportedly attempt to storm the tunnels under the Azovstal plant, where some 2,000 Ukrainian marines are holding out. Denys Prokopenko, a commander of the Azov Regiment inside the plant, says Ukrainians are fighting “difficult, bloody battles”. A top Ukrainian parliamentarian confirms that Russians are inside the plant. The United Nations evacuates 344 civilians from Mariupol and surrounding villages to safety in Zaporizhia. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeals to the UN to save an estimated 200 civilians still in the city’s Azovstal plant.
Russian forces conduct an unsuccessful ground offensive from Kherson towards Zaporizhia in the southwest.
The European Commission unveils a sixth round of sanctions, including “a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined,” in Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen’s words to European Parliament, by the end of the year.
Von Der Leyen also calls for banning Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, from the Swift interbank transaction system, along with Credit Bank of Moscow and the Russian Agricultural Bank. “This will solidify the complete isolation of the Russian financial sector from the global system,” she says. Finally, she calls for a ban on three Russian state broadcasters, Rossiya RTR/RTR Planeta, Rossiya 24 and TV Centre International, and a ban on selling accounting, consulting and public relations services to Russia.
May 5
Ukrainian forces repel Russian attempts to regain lost positions around Kharkiv in the northeast. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zalyzhnyi states that Ukrainian forces are transitioning to counteroffensive operations around Kharkiv and Izyum, the first direct Ukrainian military statement of a shift to offensive operations.
Ukrainian officials and military officers confirm that Russian forces have breached underground tunnels at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
A Reuters investigation for the first time reveals the identities of Russian units believed to have committed war crimes in Bucha. They include the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, an elite paratrooper unit under the personal command of defence minister Sergey Shoigu, and Vityaz security force, commanded by former Putin bodyguard Viktor Zolotov. The investigation also reveals identities of Ukrainian civilians allegedly tortured and killed by these units.
A US defence official reveals that the US gave Ukrainian forces intelligence on the whereabouts of the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva before Ukraine targeted and sank it with two missiles.
Zelenskyy seeks to dig out the last remaining civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
May 6
Ukrainian forces continue to retake territory northeast of Kharkiv, marking the first large-scale counteroffensive on the eastern front. The Ukrainian general staff and news sources say the villages of Oleksandrivka, Fedorivka, Ukrainka, Shestakovo, Peremoha, Tsirkuny and parts of Cherkasy Tishki fall to Ukraine.
The Pentagon says most Russian forces have left Mariupol to fight in the Donbas region, leaving a garrison of about 2,000 troops – the same as the number of Ukrainians believed to be in the Azovstal plant. The Red Cross and United Nations evacuate 50 civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol to Zaporizhia.
Russian offensives around Izium are repelled, but Russian forces make small advances around Severdonetsk.
Germany says it will send seven self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, which had requested a dozen. The Netherlands had already committed to send five.
The European Commission tweaks its 6th sanctions proposal, giving Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic until the end of 2024 to wean themselves off Russian oil. The Commission also triples a transition period for EU-flagged ships to stop carrying Russian oil to three months, but according to some reports the measure could be scrapped altogether.
Zelenskyy for the first time outlines strict conditions on which he would enter peace talks with Russia, including a withdrawal of Russian forces to pre-February 24 borders, the return of 5 million refugees, membership in the European Union and accountability for those Russians who committed war crimes.
May 7
The Ukrainian general staff says Russian forces destroy three bridges in their retreat from Kharkiv, at Circuna and Rusky Tyshky, 22km from Kharkiv city centre, indicating that they are unlikely to attempt to retake the territory the Ukrainian counteroffensive is seizing around the city. Russia confirms the withdrawal.
The Russians are also bogged down near Izyum, with Ukrainian forces preventing their branching out to take surrounding villages to the west and southwest. There is also no Russian attempt to break out southeast towards Slovyansk, a presumed Russian objective that would help surround Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian officials confirm that Russian forces have occupied Popasna, an advanced position in Luhansk province, and a presumed jumping off point to march on Slovyansk.
Mariupol municipal advisor Petro Andryuschenko says Russians are preparing to hold a May 9 parade in the city, and are offering residents food in return for clearing rubble and dead bodies. Deputy prime minister Irina Vereshchuk says all civilians have now been evacuated from the Azovstal plant in the city.
Russian forces continue to target Odessa with missiles.
May 8
Russian forces amass in Belgorod, southern Russia, presumably to move against the Ukrainian counteroffensive around Kharkiv. On the eastern line of contact, Russians continue their offensives in an effort to take all of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Sixty civilians are believed to have been killed by a Russian air strike on a school, where 90 were sheltering. In Izyum Russians pause to regroup. Russian forces continue to attack the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
May 9
Russian forces make marginal gains around Severdonetsk.
In Mariupol, Russian forces continue to conduct artillery strikes and assaults on the Azovstal plant, reporedly advancing into its northern side.
Russian president Vladimir Putin says his “special military operation” in Ukraine was necessary as a pre-emptive defence of Russia, because NATO and Ukraine were plotting to take aggressive action.
“We saw military infrastructure being ramped up, hundreds of military advisers working and regular deliveries of modern weapons from NATO. [The level of] danger was increasing every day. Russia preventively rebuffed the aggressor. It was necessary, timely and … right. The decision of a sovereign, strong, independent country.”
Putin does not use the speech to order a general mobilisation or to ramp up war aims.
French president Emmanuel Macron pours cold water on any notion of rapid EU membership for Ukraine, saying it will likely take “many decades” in a speech to European Parliament. But he instead supports creating a strengthened form of association with the EU that would enable Ukraine and other EU hopefuls like Moldova and Georgia to enjoy many aspects of membership quickly.
“It is our historic obligation … to create what I would describe before you today as a European political community,” he says. “This new European organisation would allow democratic European nations … to find a new space for political cooperation, security, cooperation in energy, transport, investment, infrastructure, the movement of people.”
May 10
The Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to push Russian forces east of Kharkiv city, liberating Bairak, Zamulivka, Verkhnii Saltiv, and Rubizhne (different to the Rubizhne in the Donbas) and reportedly coming within 10km of the Russian border. Ukrainian authorities report that Russian forces are retreating to regroup defensively near the border.
"Ukrainians are getting close to the Russian border. So all the gains that the Russians made in the early days in the northeast of Ukraine are increasingly slipping away," says Neil Melvin of the RUSI think-tank in London.
Russian forces continue assaults in the Donbas, but make no confirmed advances. Pro-Russian reporter Aleksandr Sladkov writes that Russian forces have good morale and are pressing the offensive, but cannot make progress because they are fighting at a 1:1 ratio with Ukrainian defenders, who are being replenished.
Russian forces continue aerial and artillery bombardment of the Azovstal plant. Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vershchuk says there are 1,000 fighters left in the plant, half the estimate of previous days, without explanation. A hundred civilians are also estimated to be trapped inside. Ukrainian defence intelligence says Russian authorities are trying to round up kindergarten teachers in the Donetsk region to be sent to work in Mariupol. Mariupol municipal advisor Petro Andrushchenko says Russian occupiers are calling steel workers to return to the Ilyich plant to resume production that will help the Russian armed forces.
At least one person is reported killed as Russian missiles hit a shopping centre in Odessa.
The US House of Representatives prepares to approve $39.8bn in additional funding for Ukraine, even more than the $33bn president Joe Biden had asked for on April 28. The secretaries of state and defence say they will run out of the existing funding authority for Ukraine by May 19.
Ukraine defence intelligence says it has identified convoys of Russian trucks taking Ukrainian grain, sunflower seeds and vegetables towards the Crimea and the Russian border. Some shipments have reportedly been sent to Syria.