Another Russian general has reportedly been killed amid ongoing fighting in Ukraine. The officer in question is Maj. Gen. Andrei Simonov, who was apparently taken out by Ukrainian artillery — along with some 100 other Russian soldiers — near Izyum, a Ukrainian city that is currently occupied by Russian forces. As summarized by the Kyiv Post, “National Guard units reported on April 30 that they spotted a field command post of the Russian 2nd Army in the area and passed the coordinates on to the military whose artillery fired on the positions.” Over 30 armored vehicles on the Russian side were also reportedly struck in the ensuing artillery fire. Continued Ukrainian strategic successes are coming amid persistent efforts by the Biden administration to provide the targeted country with billions upon billions of dollars worth of weapons and other assistance.
⚡️General Staff: Russian forces try to ‘create conditions’ to advance towards Mykolaiv, Kryvyi Rih.
According to the military, Russia aims to occupy the whole Kherson Oblast and “create favorable conditions” to attack the cities of Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 1, 2022
Simonov’s reported death adds onto an already substantial list of apparently dead Russian generals who’ve been taken out by Ukrainian defenses. Recently, Ukraine reported that they’d killed two Russian generals and wounded a third in a strike in the Kherson region that also wiped out a command post of Russia’s 49th Combined Arms Army. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, that command center was, “in defiance of combat instructions and common sense… located a short distance from the combat line in Kherson Region.” Russians captured the city of Kherson, where a sham referendum on the question of splitting from Ukraine and creating a so-called independent republic has been under development. Those living in Kherson have sought to escape amid fears including that Russians could force local men into military service for Putin following a referendum along these lines.
⚡️Kharkiv authorities urge residents not to leave bomb shelters all day on May 1.
Due to the heavy shelling of Saltivka, a neighborhood in Kharkiv's northeast, residents of northern and eastern districts are asked not to leave shelters on May 1 even when air raid sirens are off.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 1, 2022
Meanwhile, Russian forces have also continued their targeting of Mariupol, around which four so-called filtration camps have been reported to be operating. Russian forces have searched among detainees at these camps for “any supposed links to the legitimate Ukrainian government or to independent media outlets,” as U.S. official Michael Carpenter, who serves as ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), explained. Some of those suspected of those links have apparently been tortured and killed. As Carpenter summarized it, “Our information indicates Russia is abducting, torturing, and/or murdering locally elected leaders, journalists, and civil society activists, as well as religious leaders.” The large Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol became one of the last local sites for confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian troops, and while hundreds of civilians and Ukrainian service members remain trapped at the premises, some have reportedly been evacuated — although evidently, some evacuees were taken at least for now to a Ukrainian jurisdiction currently under Russian control. Russian forces have brutalized local populations in areas they’ve controlled, like Bucha.
⚡️Ukraine to attempt evacuation from Mariupol on May 1.
Mariupol City Council said that an evacuation from besieged Mariupol to Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia may start at 4 p.m. near the Port City shopping mall.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 1, 2022
