re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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??Türkiye refused to hand over the S-400 air defense system to Ukraine at the request of the US, the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, told the Haberturk TV channel.

The states offered Türkiye to hand over complexes to Ukraine to protect the sky, but the offer was rejected. In addition, Türkiye also refused to give the US access to the systems for their study.

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The Czech president, Petr Pavel, a decorated retired general who was previously Nato’s principal military adviser, has privately warned Ukraine’s leadership against the disaster of a rushed counteroffensive.

In recent meetings in Kyiv with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, Pavel cautioned that they no longer had the element of surprise that aided successful assaults on the eastern city of Kharkiv and southern region of Kherson last year.

The war hero, who was chair of the Nato military committee until 2018 and decorated by the Czech and French governments for rescuing French troops besieged by the Serbs during the Bosnian war in 1993, said there was recognition in Kyiv that gaps remained in Ukraine’s capacity for a successful offensive against Russian forces.

He said Zelenskiy had asked him and his Slovak counterpart, Zuzana Caputová, for their nations each to arm a Ukrainian mechanised brigade before the long-anticipated counter-assault.

“Apparently, they still have a feeling that they do not have everything to start successfully an operation,” Pavel said.

With preparations still being made, Pavel, who was elected in January, said he had appealed to Shmyhal during meetings last week not to be “pushed into a faster pace before they are fully prepared”.

“Because it might be a temptation to push them, for some, to demonstrate some results,” Pavel said in an interview during a visit to London for King Charles’s coronation. “It will be extremely harmful to Ukraine if this counteroffensive fails, because they will not have another chance, at least not this year.”

Ukraine would inevitably face “terrible losses” no matter the strength of its forces, he said, and it could not afford for the assault to fail. “Because it’s extremely demanding in terms of putting together personnel equipment, ammunition logistics, fuel financing. It will simply be one chance this year, so it has to be successful.”

In a wide-ranging interview – his first in the UK – Pavel also said:

- EU member states agreed this weekend to source ammunition for Ukraine from outside the bloc, including the UK and the US, despite initial objections from France, a decision he said would increase the scope for helping Ukraine in the next weeks and months.

- Europe did not have the capacity to produce the armaments it needs but it could buy it in and Zelenskiy had said he would provide qualified technicians for new ammunition factories if the EU defence industry fell short. “He said: ‘Yeah, we can do that.’”

- The EU should source ammunition for Ukraine from all over the world, including countries that might not want to admit to being involved in the conflict with Russia, or with whom European capitals might feel some diplomatic embarrassment in dealing with – “there are ways how we can do it”.

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“Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a man who doesn’t have time to go around the problem and I indicated from the very first moment of our meeting that I’m also not a man of diplomatic language,” Pavel said. “So I encouraged him to go straight to the problem, and he said: ‘Well, OK, we need a lot of ammunition.’ And then he gave me a load of equipment that they need to build successfully and obligates for a counteroffensive.


“They are trying to set up up to nine mechanised brigades. And since he met me and Zuzana Caputová on the same day, he asked us if we could take, each nation, one brigade, which is in effect something about 35 tanks and 100 armed personnel carriers (APCs) and ammunition.

“Now, it will be extremely difficult even though the Czech Republic has already delivered slightly less than 100 tanks, especially T72s, many of them modernised, about a similar number of APCs, artillery, rocket launchers and a lot of ammunition. Where we still have some capacity is air defence systems with a number of rockets, which will be very helpful to them.”

Pavel said Kyiv should not “underestimate the Russians because they have enough manpower, they still have enough equipment, even though it is older, probably in lower numbers, but still, they have a large amount of artillery barrels, they have a lot of ammunition.”

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The Czech president, Petr Pavel

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Missiles reported over the Odesa Region of Southern Ukraine; Air Defenses are Actively attempting to to Intercept them.

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Key Takeaways

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov may have compelled the Russian theater commander in Ukraine, Army General Valery Gerasimov, to resume artillery ammunition distribution to Wagner forces in Bakhmut despite Gerasimov’s desired de-prioritization of that effort.

Kadyrov’s threats to transfer his forces to Bakhmut may have blackmailed the Russian military command into allocating ammunition to Wagner mercenaries.

Kadyrov likely supported Wagner’s blackmail efforts against the Russian military command to reestablish his position within the circle of power of the Kremlin.

Gerasimov's apparent need to negotiate with subordinate commanders and those commanders’ ability to force his hand suggests that chain of command problems are significantly impacting the Russian military's ability to conduct coherent theater-wide operations.

These events raise questions about Russia’s ability to coordinate a coherent theater-wide defensive campaign.

Prigozhin’s and Kadyrov’s ability to significantly influence Russian military command decisions relies on Putin’s willingness to appease them and his reliance on their forces – both of which will likely degrade after further blackmail efforts.

Prigozhin’s continued fight to complete the capture of Bakhmut contradicts his consistent narrative that capturing Bakhmut lacks strategic value.

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and south of Kreminna.

Russian forces made some territorial gains in Bakhmut as of May 7 and continued limited offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk front.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces launched up to 23 drones at Crimea on the night of May 6 to 7.

Russian federal subjects are continuing to recruit and form regional armed formations and volunteer battalions.

Russian occupation authorities continue to plan and carry out forced evacuations from Zaporizhia Oblast.

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