Live blog: US says over 20,000 Russians killed in Ukraine since December

Monday, May 1, 2023

The White House has said that it now estimates that just since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed, as Ukraine has rebuffed a heavy assault by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US estimate is based on newly declassified American intelligence. He did not detail how the intelligence community derived the number.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Russia had suffered well over 100,000 killed or wounded in the first eight months of the war. The new figures suggest that Russian losses have dramatically accelerated in recent months.

Kirby said nearly half of those killed since December are Wagner forces, many of them convicts who were released from prison to join Russia's fight. He said the Wagner forces were “thrown into combat and without sufficient combat or combat training, combat leadership, or any sense of organizational command and control.”

Kirby declined to say how many Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded in the fighting. Milley said in November that Ukrainian casualties were probably also about 100,000.

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1523 GMT - Ukrainian counterattacks oust Russians from positions in Bakhmut

Ukrainian counterattacks have ousted Russian forces from some positions in the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut, but the situation remains "difficult", a top Ukrainian general said.

During the past few months, the battle for Bakhmut has become the centre of a conflict that has seen little shift in front lines since late last year, leaving both sides looking for a breakthrough.

"The situation is quite difficult," said Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of ground forces, in a statement on Telegram.

"At the same time, in certain parts of the city, the enemy was counterattacked by our units and left some positions."

1451 GMT - Russia's Prigozhin renews appeal for more ammunition to seize city of Bakhmut

The head of the Wagner private militia renewed his appeal to Russia's defence ministry to increase ammunition shipments to his fighters trying to seize the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has frequently clashed with Moscow's defence establishment over the conduct of Russia's campaign in Ukraine and what he says is insufficient support being provided to his Wagner soldiers.

In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said he needs at least 300 tonnes of artillery shells a day for the assault.

"Three hundred tonnes a day is 10 cargo containers - not a lot at all ... But we are being given no more than a third of that," Prigozhin said as he inspected boxes of rifles in a warehouse he said was in the town of Soledar, to the northeast of Bakhmut.

1434 GMT - Ukraine withdraws from Judo worlds over Russian soldier presence

Ukraine pulled its team from the World Judo Championships in Qatar over the presence of Russian athletes it argued were active soldiers.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) gave judokas from Russia and Belarus the green light to compete at the May 7-14 championships in Doha on the proviso they do so as individual neutral athletes.

But the Ukrainian judo federation said in a statement that "the majority of the (Russian) team are athletes who are active servicemen of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, part of the army that attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022".

A Russian army, the federation said, "is still waging a brutal full-scale war on our territory, shelling Ukrainian cities, and civilian homes every day, killing civilians and children".

0854 GMT - 34 wounded in Russian strikes on central Ukraine: official

Russian missile attacks across Ukraine have wounded 34 people in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, including children, regional authorities said.

"There are already 34 wounded due to a missile attack on the Pavlograd district," Sergiy Lysak, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on social media.

"Five of them are children. The youngest is a girl and only eight years old," Lysak said.

0552 GMT - Russian strikes kill one in Ukraine's Kherson

Russian strikes killed one person and wounded three others in the Ukrainian region of Kherson, a regional official said.

"Over the past day, the enemy carried out 39 shellings, firing 163 shells from heavy artillery, Grads, UAVs and aviation. The enemy shelled the city of Kherson 8 times," said Oleksandr Prokudin, of the military administration for Kherson, in Ukraine's south.

"As a result of Russian aggression, one person died and three others, including a child, were injured."

Russia still controls part of the Kherson region, having withdrawn from the eponymous regional capital last November.

0436 GMT - Oil depot fire part of Ukraine's preparation for counter-offensive - military

Undermining Russia's logistics is one of the elements of preparation for the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, a Ukrainian military spokeswoman has said, after a fire destroyed a large Russian fuel depot in Moscow-annexed Crimea.

While not directly admitting to striking the fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, Ukraine's military command said that "a fire" destroyed 10 oil tanks with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes.

The city's Moscow-backed governor blamed Ukraine and later said the fire had been put out before a disaster occurred.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's southern command, said the fire has cause a great deal of "anxiety" in the Russian military.

0208 GMT - Ukrainian air defences 'shoot down' 15 Russian missiles

Ukrainian air defence crews have destroyed 15 out of 18 missiles launched by Russian forces in the early hours of Monday morning, the military said, as air raid sirens blared across the country for more than three hours.

"Around 1130 GMT (2:30 am local time), the Russian invaders attacked Ukraine from strategic aviation planes," a post on the Telegram channel of Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in chief of Ukraine's armed forces, read.

It added that 15 out of the 18 missiles launched had been destroyed.

Kiev's city officials wrote on the Telegram messaging app that all missiles directed at the capital were destroyed.

"According to (preliminary information), no casualties among the civilian population and no destruction of residential facilities or infrastructure have been recorded," the city administration said.

0140 GMT - Kiev region comes under Russian missile attacks - officials

Air defence systems were repelling missile attacks in the early morning in the Kiev region, local authorities have said, after air raid alerts were issued throughout all of Ukraine by emergency services.

"Air defences are at work!" Kiev's regional administration wrote on the Telegram messaging app, after reports of explosions heard in the region.

"Keep calm! Stay in shelters until the air alarm goes off!"

Ukrainian media also reported blasts in the Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions.

For our live updates from Sunday (April 30), click here