The war in Ukraine, Prigozhin: «Russian regular forces flee from Bakhmut». Zelensky arrives in Rome: tomorrow he will meet Mattarella.

The regular forces of the Russian army fled to Bakhmut. This was stated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner PMC. Moscow Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russian units had “regrouped” to take a more advantageous position. “What Konashenkov said is called an escape, not a regroup,” Prigozhin commented on his Telegram channel.

Russian forces repulsed a Ukrainian attack along a 95-kilometer front in Donbass. This was announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense, quoting Russian agencies. The ministry specifies that in the Solidar area, 26 attacks by Ukrainian forces, in which up to 40 tanks and more than a thousand soldiers were used, were repelled.

The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, will meet tomorrow with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. The details of the visit are confidential for security reasons.

Russian Telegram channels documenting and supporting the war, and thus commonly referred to as Z, have begun writing that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. Blogger Yevgeny Poddubny claims that the Kiev forces “began an operation to encircle” the Russian forces near Bakhmut and managed to break the Russian front in the Solidar area. And Alexander Coats announced that tanks had been spotted on the road from Kharkiv to the Russian border, according to him, to force an expansion of Russian resources used to “stop the threat in the Belgorod region.” Poddubny also reported on Ukrainian military activity near Kharkiv. The former Minister of Defense of the Donetsk Republic Igor Strelkov explained that at the moment we are dealing with “only local attacks, even if they are successful.”

China’s special envoy for the Ukraine crisis will go to Kiev on Monday, and then to Moscow. This was announced by the Beijing Foreign Ministry.

Wagner militia commander Yevgeny Prigozhin invited Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to go personally to “assess the situation” in Bakhmut, the city in eastern Ukraine where a fierce battle has been going on for months between Ukrainian and Russian forces. The independent Belarusian media Nexta writes on Twitter posting Prigozhin’s letter to Shoigu dated May 11.

Exiled mayor Ivan Fedorov reported a massive explosion in Melitopol, Zaporizhia region of Ukraine, citing RBC Ukraine. “A huge explosion occurred in Melitopol, in the city centre,” Fedorov said. According to RIA Melitopol, the explosion was well heard by residents of the central part of the city, in the park and Beshanaya district. According to the Russian forces in the city, the explosion was a bomb placed in a rubbish bin by the Ukrainian army.

The leader and founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, goes even further. And his recent video messages, in which he attacks Moscow head-on, questioning its ability to protect Russia, is also seriously “irritating the top leadership” in the Kremlin. This was stated by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), citing Kremlin sources on condition of anonymity in its latest update on the conflict in Ukraine.

It is possible that the Russian military authorities are lying about the alleged shortage of ammunition in Ukraine. This was confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Defense of Kiev, Hanna Malyar, in a post on Telegram, in which she highlighted how Russian air attacks have “increased dramatically” in recent weeks, and this is in contrast to the observations of some senior army leaders, such as the head of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to Malyar, the Russians intensified their attack on the localities of Liman and Bakhmut. “During war, any information of a military nature is a weapon. The enemy is simply deceiving us for its military purposes.”

The Russian Defense Ministry denied reports that Ukrainian forces had penetrated various points along the front line and said the military situation was under control. The Guardian reported that. Moscow responded after Russian military bloggers wrote on Telegram that Ukraine was advancing north and south of the eastern city of Bakhmut, with some suggesting the start of a Kiev counteroffensive.