Victory Chronicles
-DAY 453

KEY TAKEAWAYS TODAY

Above: On Sunday, tens of thousands of Moldovans demonstrated in support of EU membership.  Moldovan police estimated about 75 thousand people rallied in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital.  President Maia Sandu, who  called for the rally, proclaimed, “”We came to say loudly, confidently and proudly that Moldovans are Europeans!” (The Kyiv Post)

Above: UK Ministry of Defence

• The US Department of Defense announced on Sunday the 38th drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021. The new military aid package in the amount of $375 million includes ammunition for US-provided HIMARS, artillery rounds, anti-armor capabilities and critical enablers that Ukraine is using on the battlefield to push back against Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression.
• The Biden Administration gave permission for allies to provide F-16 and other US-made advanced fighter jets to Ukraine.  Now the scramble is to train pilots and maintenance personnel  and set up repair and maintenance pipelines.  CNN explained some of the challenges: “Analysts note that for a modern fighter jet like the F-16, training maintenance personnel can take longer than training pilots. ‘I think it’s possible to teach a Ukrainian pilot to fly an F-16 in three months,’ said Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and former Royal Australian Air Force officer. But ‘training maintenance personnel can take months or years, depending on the desired level of proficiency,’ according to a March report on the possible F-16 transfers from the Congressional Research Service.”
• A coalition of NATO countries including the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark have announced plans to contribute resources to training Ukrainian pilots on advanced military aircraft.  The UK, known for its excellent pilot training programs, will provide training facilities even though the UK does not use F-16s.  No jets are expected to be operative in Ukraine until mid- to late-Fall.  
• During the day of May 21, the Ukrainian Air Force launched 14x air strikes on the concentrations of troops and military equipment, as well as 7x air strikes on the anti-aircraft missile systems of the adversary. 3x reconnaissance UAVs of various types as well as 5x combat UAVs of the enemy were intercepted. Ukrainian missile and artillery troops hit 5x concentrations of troops, 2x ammunition depots, 3x artillery units at their firing positions, 2x command posts, 1x electronic warfare station, 1x anti-aircraft missile system, and 1x other important targets of the adversary.

⚡️The 🇨🇿Czech Mi-24V attack helicopter is in service with the Air Force of 🇺🇦Ukraine pic.twitter.com/uCmZbfIqcl

— 🇺🇦Ukrainian Front (@front_ukrainian) May 22, 2023

GENERAL STAFF DAILY ENEMY LOSSES

Above: Southern Command reported shooting down a number and variety of enemy drones over the weekend. (Southern Command)

Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces estimated enemy losses since February 24, 2022 (with daily additions)

Enemy loses table

GENERAL STAFF STRIKES ON CIVILIANS

Above: Russian occupation forces launched 16 missiles of various types and deployed 20 Shahed drones in an attack on military and civilian infrastructure facilities in the city of Dnipro on the night of 21–22 May. (Dnipro ODA)

• From the Kyiv Independent: Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day have killed three people and injured 14, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian forces launched strikes on Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
• Overnight on May 22, Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Ukrainian air defense shot down 20 Russian drones and four cruise missiles.
• Air defense intercepted 15 drones and four cruise missiles over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, according to Governor Serhii Lysak. However, not all strikes were intercepted, injuring eight people, including a 27-year-old man and two women aged 52 and 70.
• Russian attacks on Donetsk Oblast killed two people in Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar, and injured six people in other parts of the region, according to Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
• Meanwhile, Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported that Russian forces shelled communities in Kharkiv Oblast, injuring a civilian and destroying a residential building and two recreation centers in Chuhuiv. The Russian attacks also damaged six homes and farm buildings in Vovchansk.
• Russian troops shelled Kherson Oblast 57 times, striking with heavy artillery, rockets, tanks, aircraft, and drones, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported. The attacks killed a 55-year-old resident in the village of Kozatske.
• Zaporizhzhia Oblast was shelled 75 times across 16 communities, reported Governor Yurii Malashko. While there were no casualties reported, residential and agricultural buildings were damaged.

KHARKIV-LUHANSK

Above: Vyshyvanka Day in Kharkiv, the Ukrainian resistance flag with a quote from Taras Shevchenko’s series of poems written in prison in St Petersburg in 1847.  “It makes great difference to me; That evil folk and wicked men; Attack our Ukraine, once so free; And rob and plunder it at will.; That makes a great difference to me.” (Suspline)

Above: A blue and white “Free Russia” flag flies on a bridge in Belgorod Monday. Russian partisans took responsibility for a Monday assault on Belgorod, Russia, and surrounding territory. On Telegram, the All-National Movement “Free Russia ” wrote: “Stay at home, do not resist and do not be afraid: we are not your enemies. Unlike Putin’s zombies, we do not touch civilians and do not use them for our own purposes. Freedom is near!”  Reports and images of drone attacks, Belgorod activated air defenses and a destroyed Kharkiv-Belgorod border checkpoint are breaking.  

Video: Free Russia Brigade released a video regarding the assault on Belgorod Monday.

The “Liberty of Russia” Legion @legion_svoboda also says it is returning home to end the Kremlin's dictatorship.

"We are Russians just like you. We are people just like you. We want our children to grow up in piece and be free people, so that they can travel, study and just be… pic.twitter.com/AcNTpJ2Njv

— ✙ Albina Fella ✙ 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇫🇷🇩🇪🇵🇱🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺 (@albafella1) May 22, 2023

• For perhaps the twelfth time, Wager announced its forces had taken Bakhmut, but Ukraine said not quite true. Deputy Defense Minister Maliar said Monday morning, “Since yesterday, the situation in the Bakhmut direction has not changed significantly. Fighting continues. Our troops control certain objects and the private sector in the Litak area…There are battles for heights in the north and south of the suburbs…The offensive potential of the enemy has been significantly reduced, huge losses have been inflicted on the enemy, we have gained time for certain actions, which will be discussed later.” 
• ISW assesses that Wagner’s likely capture of the last remaining small area of western Bakhmut does not impact ongoing Ukrainian counterattacks north or south of Bakhmut, nor does it impact Ukrainian control over the ground lines of communications around Bakhmut that exhausted Wagner forces would need to reach in order to conduct further offensive operations. Russian forces will likely need additional reinforcements to hold Bakhmut City and its flanks at the expense of operations in other directions.
• While the fog of war precludes a precise description of the situation in Bakhmut, the Kyiv Independent published an overview of the ten-month Battle for Bakhmut. Wagner also announced, again, that they would leave Bakhmut by June1 and turn it over to the Russian MoD. 
• Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Donetsk City-Avdiivka frontline but have not made any verifiable territorial gains on May 21. Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations in the directions of Avdiivka, Marinka (18km west of Donetsk City), Pervomaiske (15km northwest of Donetsk City), Novokalynove (12km north of Avdiivka), and Sieverne (14km northwest of Donetsk City).
• Russian forces continued localized attacks on settlements southwest of Donetsk City on May 21. Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults on Novomykhailivka (about 30km southwest of Donetsk City) and continued to use aviation and artillery to target nearby settlements.

ZAPORIZHZHIA-KHERSON-CRIMEA

Above:  Operational Command South

Above: The Kremlin continues to prepare for the Crimean tourist season.  BBC published several satellite images of the invaders’ supreme effort to dig into occupied territory with a goal of permanent occupation through defensive operations.

• Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a deep strike against a Russian headquarters at an airfield in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast, with Storm Shadow missiles on May 21.Geolocated pictures show smoke rising in the direction of the Berdyansk airfield. A Russian source commented that Ukraine’s recent deep strikes against the airfield in Mariupol on May 19 and the airfield in Berdyansk on May 21 are part of a new Ukrainian effort to “thin out” Russian aviation stationed along the Sea of Azov Coast.
• The Ukrainian National resistance Center reported that the occupiers have increased the number of checkpoints in occupied Zaporizhzhia and are checking residents with FSB agents and dogs. Men in the temporarily occupied territories are arrested for the slightest pretext and held in prison under pressure to join the occupational forces.  Detainees are taken to field camps where conscripted Russian prisoners are held.
• By noon on Monday, Enerhoatom reported power had been restored to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.  Earlier on the morning of May 22, as a result of enemy  shelling, at 5:26am, the last high-voltage transmission line, from which the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP is powered, was disconnected and the plant switched to diesel generators for the seventh time since occupation. Enerhoatom stated, “The continued occupation of the ZNPP by Russia, the rule of an illegitimate and untrained racist leadership at the station, which bears no responsibility for the facility’s nuclear and radiation safety, is constantly bringing the ZNPP closer to irreparable.” 
• The UN’s nuclear oversight organization IAEA is pushing for a last-minute agreement on the safeguarding of the ZNPP ahead of Ukraine’s anticipated counteroffensive. It is feared that Russian recklessness and disregard of life could lead to disaster under pressure from Ukrainian advances.  However, the UN’s power to make change is practically nil as long as Russia remains a voting member of the permanent council.