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11:33 p.m. : You can find the summary of the day this Friday in our daily article devoted to the evolution of the situation in Ukraine.
11:28 p.m. : According to Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar, Russia hopes to conquer Bakhmut by Tuesday, the day it celebrates victory over Nazi Germany with great fanfare in a grand celebration of patriotic exaltation. Moscow’s tactic, she says, is to “remove men from Wagner” for the “replace with parachute assault units” of the Army.
11:27 p.m. : The boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has threatened to withdraw his troops from the city of Bakhmout, accusing the Russian general staff of depriving him of ammunition. In this context, the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov called on Telegram this same staff to “surrender” in Bakhmout “and sort things out”.
4:09 p.m. : Russia announces evacuations in 18 occupied localities in the Zaporizhia region, including Ernerhodar, the city where the nuclear power plant is located. Ukraine “has intensified the bombardments” in this area in recent days, justifies the regional manager installed by Moscow, Evguéni Balitski, on Telegram. There is no question of troop withdrawal: this evacuation will primarily concern children and their parents, the elderly and disabled and hospital patients.
3:50 p.m. : If the Wagner group does withdraw its troops from the front, Russia would lose the support of “tens of thousands of men currently present on the ground”, explained Lukas Aubin, specialist in the geopolitics of Russia within the Institute of international and strategic relations, on franceinfo. Statements by Yevgeny Prigozhin, as well as the possible drone attack on the Kremlin, “show that there are difficulties at the top of the state in Russia, that there are difficulties in mastering this ‘special military operation'”.
3:49 p.m. : The Russian General Staff carries “responsibility for tens of thousands of killed and injured” in Ukraine, accuses the leader of the paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in his most direct attacks to date against the Russian Minister of Defense. This morning, he had already announced that his troops would withdraw from Bakhmout, where they are on the front line, on May 10, for lack of sufficient ammunition supplied by Moscow.
3:27 p.m. : The Senate site is accessible again, after being targeted for several hours by a cyberattack, claimed by a pro-Russian group.
12:59 : A group of pro-Russian hackers claims a cyberattack against the site of the French Senate, which has been inaccessible since this morning. In a message on Telegram, the group NoName057(16) justifies its attack by the fact that “France is working with Ukraine on a new ‘aid’ package, which could include weapons”. “No hypothesis is confirmed at this stage”warns however the communication service of the Senate.
11:54 : A new fire broke out this Friday in the south-west of Russia, near Ukraine, in an oil refinery targeted the day before by a drone attack, announced the local emergency services, quoted by the Russian news agencies.
11:14 a.m. : The alleged Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin this week could not have taken place without the United States knowing about it, said the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, while Washington and Kiev denied any involvement .
10:30 a.m. : The boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has threatened to withdraw his fighters from the epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, because of a lack of ammunition which he blames on the army against a backdrop of rivalry. “We were going to take the city of Bakhmout before May 9. When they saw this, the military bureaucrats stopped the deliveries (of ammunition)”, said Yevgeny Prigozhin.
10:28 : The Wagner group threatens to withdraw from Bakhmout on May 10, due to lack of ammunition