THE RUSSIAN army struck at warehouses in the Zhytomyr region in the west of Ukraine on Saturday. High-precision long-range sea-based ‘Caliber’ missiles reached the target at the Malin railway station in the Zhytomyr region during a Russian special operation.
The target was a large batch of weapons and equipment from the United States and Europe for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
At the Odessa Port Plant, with the help of high-precision air-launched missiles, storage facilities with fuel for Ukrainian nationalists’ armoured vehicles were also destroyed.
In addition, high-precision air-launched missiles hit three command posts, including that of the 109th terrorist defence brigade in the Bakhmut area.
The strikes were on 36 areas of concentration of military equipment and manpower of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as eight ammunition depots in various settlements.
Russian Defence Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday that Russia’s armed forces have destroyed ‘In total, since the beginning of the special military operation: 174 aircraft and 125 helicopters, 977 unmanned aerial vehicles, 317 air defence systems, 3,198 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 408 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,622 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 3,077 special military vehicles.’
Air force strikes also destroyed a total of more than 210 nationalists and incapacitated 38 units of Ukrainian military equipment.
Konashenkov added that Russian air defences have destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones and intercepted two projectiles fired by a Ukrainian MLRS on Saturday.
And two Ukrainian projectiles fired by the Smerch MLRS were intercepted.
In addition, Russia’s rocket and artillery forces struck about 700 Ukrainian military targets over the past day of the special operation.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled the Kuibyshevsky district of Donetsk.
This was announced on May 22 by the DPR representative office in the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire Regime (JCCC).
Russian Guard fighters also liquidated the stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Lugansk, the press service of the department said.
According to available information, a pickup truck and an armed group of the enemy were found in one of the districts. It is noted that the enemy was preparing to launch an artillery strike on National Guard positions.
‘The fire platoon of the Russian Guard preempted a possible attack and destroyed the stronghold of the enemy platoon with mortar fire.’
Ukrainian nationalists have started to lay down their arms after the surrender of Ukrainian militants from the Azovstal plant, military observer Viktor Litovkin told Izvestia on Saturday May 21st.
According to him, the surrender of the militants of the Azov nationalist group (a terrorist group banned in the Russian Federation) has become a stone that will roll down the mountain and drag the rest of the nationalists along with it.
‘The militants had no choice but to sit under the thickness of concrete underground and eat up the last sandwiches, drink the last clean water and shoot their last ammunition in short sorties from these holes,’ Litovkin said.
He added that the Ukrainian militants were waiting to be ‘liberated by the Pope’ and the Kiev regime, but all attempts to evacuate the leaders of the “Azovites” were thwarted.
‘Later, they realised that it was useless to wait for salvation, so they had two options – to stay forever in the dungeons or go outside and give up.’
Litovkin described the Ukrainian militants’ surrender as ‘inglorious’, despite attempts by the Western and Ukrainian media to glorify them.
‘So the story of the inmates of Azovstal ended ingloriously. True, the President of Ukraine, Vlodomyr Zelensky, called it an evacuation to “territory not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities”.
‘It’s funny and stupid on the part of Zelensky, but such is the Ukrainian government. It is unable to recognise the reality of its defeat and is trying to hide it behind some intricate phrases,’ he said.
The surrender of the Azovstal garrison, the most combat-ready unit of the Ukrainian troops, ‘caused shock in Ukraine’.
This is stated in an article published in the Italian newspaper Republica which wrote: ‘The population of Ukraine is experiencing the surrender of Azovstal as a national drama.
‘Residents of Nezalezhnaya cannot recover, because the authorities in Kiev assured them that they would be able to evacuate the entire garrison. Well, reality was evacuated – into Russian captivity.’
‘Western media are spreading fake news about the Russian special operation in Ukraine at the suggestion of the United States and NATO, which sponsor this initiative,’ according to Peruvian journalist Ricardo Sanchez Serra.
He wrote: ‘Westerners have been “brainwashed” with fake news, and now people have simply lost the ability to distinguish lies from the truth.’
The journalist cited some of the most striking cases as examples:
‘It turned out that the buildings that the Russians allegedly destroyed in Kiev were actually bombed in the Gaza Strip.
‘The destruction in the Donbass was attributed to Russia, but in fact they were hit by a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile.
‘They said that the tank that crushed the car was Russian, but it turned out to be Ukrainian,’ Serra stressed.
He also mentioned neo-Nazis who are fighting on the side of Kiev and ‘hide in schools, shopping malls, hospitals and nursing homes’ for fear of open clashes with the Russian military.
The journalist touched upon, among other things, the European media report about the alleged bombing of Ukrainian cities by the Russian side. In fact, it turned out that the media simply took footage from a computer game and passed it off as the truth – and many viewers believed, said Serra.
- Western countries did not refute the ‘grain for weapons’ deal with Ukraine during a session of the United Nations Security Council, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said on Thursday.
‘We asked our Western colleagues to publicly refute this version that many experts are inclined to believe nowadays, even at this meeting.
‘Of course, nobody did. Just as nobody explained how these deliveries facilitate the bolstering of global food security which the Western states are so concerned about verbally,’ he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Earlier on Thursday, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said at a session of the UN Security Council on conflicts and food security that exported Ukrainian grain doesn’t go to impoverished countries but to the EU, possibly, as payment for arms supplies.
In his address, the Russian diplomat asked his Western colleagues, above all, the US and the EU, to publicly refute this – yet not a single Western representative addressed the issue.
In a tweet last week Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba claimed that Russia is blocking ports to stop food exports from Ukraine.
But in an answering tweet, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, countered that Kiev is paying its weapons bills with Ukrainian grain.
‘New lows of hypocrisy attained!
‘You know better than others that Russia does not block food exports from Ukraine’s ports. You keep them mined and use foreign ships there as human shields.
‘And ongoing land food export from your country doesn’t go to Africa but pays your weapons bills,’ he tweeted.
- Ankara may close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits to warships, but Russia will still have the right to use them for the return of its fleet to its base, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.
‘Ukraine has sent us an official request to close the straits to Russian warships .
‘The provisions of the Montreux Convention are very clear and precise. To this day, Turkey has been unhesitatingly complying with the Montreux Convention.
‘It is possible to take measures towards the parties to a war that Turkey is not involved in. Turkey can restrict the passage of warships through the straits.
‘However, the Montreux Convention also says that the ships of countries involved in a war have the right to return to their bases and should be allowed to do so,’ the Hurriyet newspaper quoted Cavusoglu as saying.
According to the top diplomat, Turkish experts are studying the issue and in case ‘a war-time situation is officially declared, the process will begin.
‘Clearly, it all requires Turkey to describe Russia’s attack as a war,’ Cavusolgu explained.
Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey, Vasily Bodnar, called on Ankara on Thursday to restrict the passage of Russian warships through the Turkish-controlled straits.
