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Russia is trying to wear down Ukraine's air defenses, military spokesperson says

Russian forces are trying to chip away at Ukraine’s air defense system, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military said in an interview Sunday.  

“They (Russian forces) are testing and trying to exhaust our air defense system. They are trying to find a way around it. And they are also expanding their tactics, because they do not have a stable stock of the means that they can operate with,” said Natalia Humeniuk, Ukraine’s Operational Command South spokesperson.   

Russians are trying “to test and find out where the air defense systems are located,” according to Humeniuk. 

Evacuations in southern Ukraine: The spokesperson also commented on Russian authorities recently evacuating civilians from the Zaporizhzhia region, calling it “an imitation of care for the local residents.”

This is a standard practice that was used by Russians before, she said.

“They are trying to evacuate the people to the places where they set up their own defense lines and where they are setting their units in order to use local civilians as a cover,” Humeniuk claimed.

Analysts suspect the southern region could be a key target of Ukraine’s anticipated counteroffensive.

 

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US officials are confident in Ukraine's claim it used Patriot system to stop a hypersonic missile, source says

The US has high confidence in the accuracy of Ukraine’s claim that it used an American-made Patriot air defense system to intercept a Russian hypersonic missile, according to a source familiar with the matter.  

While the Patriot system has been successful in countering ballistic missiles, its ability to stop air-launched hypersonic missiles was purely theoretical before last week. Ukraine’s intercept has now provided a real-world demonstration of that capability — something that has been viewed within the Pentagon as a major development, the source said. 

Ukraine’s intercept claim created buzz within the Pentagon late last week, the source added, noting it is significant for several reasons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly touted the capabilities of Russia’s hypersonic weapons and cast them as capable of overcoming all existing air defense systems. 

Production of hypersonic ballistic missiles has always been challenging for Russia and sanctions have only made it more difficult. 

But prior to last week, Russia’s calculus was that if it did use a hypersonic ballistic missile, whatever it was shooting at would assuredly get hit, the source said. This intercept has called that calculation into question, they continued.

The fact that this intercept was conducted by a Ukrainian crew that was trained in Oklahoma, but had no US advisers on the battlefield, is even more of a feather in the cap for the Pentagon, the source added, calling it a major return on investment. 

The intercept also has likely caused a severe amount of uncertainty for Russia, raising the question of whether Ukraine is in possession of a sustainable countermeasure against hypersonic ballistic missiles, the source added. 

 

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Russian jet almost collided with EU border patrol plane during "aggressive" intercept, Polish officials say

A Russian fighter jet intercepted a Polish border guard aircraft flying a mission above the Black Sea near the Romanian border Friday, which almost resulted in a collision, according to Romanian authorities.

The Polish Border Guard said on Twitter that the Russian Su-35 flew into the area without radio contact and performed “aggressive and dangerous” maneuvers.

The incident took place on Friday at 6:20 a.m. ET, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of Romania’s airspace, the Romanian defense ministry said in a statement Sunday.

“The aggressive and dangerous maneuvers repeatedly performed by Russian fighters near the Polish aircraft caused high turbulence and difficulties in controlling the aircraft,” the ministry said. 

The Polish aircraft was there as part of a joint mission coordinated by the European Union border patrol system Frontex.

The mission, which is set to last until mid-December, focuses on preventing irregular migration, illegal fishing, marine pollution, and combatting other cross-border crimes in the western Black Sea, according to the defense ministry.

The ministry said that, as a result of the incident, two combat aircraft of the Romanian air force as well as two aircraft of the Spanish Air Force were prepared to intervene by the NATO Combined Air Operations Center in Torrejon, Spain, but that their intervention was not necessary.

 

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Why Bakhmut matters

The eastern city of Bakhmut has been the site of a months-long assault by Russian forces that has forced thousands from their homes and left the area devastated.

Bakhmut has not yet fallen under total Russian control. On his official Telegram channel on Saturday, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin — whose mercenaries have played a huge part in Russia’s advance — claimed to have taken 95% of the city.

Ukrainian soldiers have dug in, while Wagner troops have sought to encircle the city in a wide arc from the north, making sluggish progress since the capture of the nearby town of Soledar in January.

The fall of Bakhmut would mark a rare breakthrough by Russia in what has become a slow-moving ground war in the east that has at times resembled the trench warfare of World War I.

But, despite the time, manpower and resources poured into capturing the city, its strategic value has always been dubious.

Bakhmut — a relatively small city in eastern Donestk — is not the sort of city Moscow would have hoped to be fighting for in the second year of its invasion.

Instead, the city has come to be prized more for the symbolic value its capture would lend to Russia. It would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a much-needed victory — and relief from criticism at home of his faltering invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier in May the US said that 20,000 of Russia’s troops have been killed in action in recent months in Ukraine with most of its efforts having “stalled and failed.”

 

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Russian authorities evacuate hundreds more from the frontline Zaporizhzhia region

Russian-installed authorities have said they are continuing to evacuate Zaporizhzhia region residents away from front lines in the annexed region.

Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-appointed military-civilian administration in occupied Zaporizhzhia, claimed on Telegram that 1,552 residents “are in safety now.”

The evacuations come amid rumours of a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive, with the Zaporizhzhia region likely to be a target.

Meanwhile, Yurii Malashko, a Ukrainian official and head of the Zaporizhzhia region military administration, said on Telegram that Russians were continuing to shell the region, but with no casualties in the last 24 hours.