RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia hits Ukrainian military HQ – MOD

Russia has carried out a strike on the Ukrainian military headquarters commanding troops in the southern sector of the front, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has announced.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry said that the military installation, Ukrainian troops and hardware, were hit by combined air, missile and artillery strikes.

Earlier in the day, citing local resistance members, RIA Novosti reported that the Russian military had targeted a Ukrainian HQ in the center of the port city of Odessa. According to the report, three explosions occured in the area, with a particularly powerful one near the facility itself. The local resistance reported numerous ambulances flocking to the HQ, adding that the area had been cordoned off by the Ukrainian authorities.

The head of the Odessa regional administration, Oleg Kiper, has confirmed there was a strike in the city, which he said involved ballistic missiles and killed at least three people. However, he claimed that only civilian infrastructure had been damaged.

Russia has repeatedly said that it targets only military installations and facilities that support defense operations, insisting that it never targets civilian infrastructure.

RIA Novosti also reported, citing resistance fighters, that Russia bombed a Ukrainian troop deployment area in the suburbs of Kharkov, a city on the Russian border, adding that another attack destroyed a warehouse storing military hardware in the southern Nikolaev Region.

According to numerous reports, a pro-Russian resistance movement is active in at least several Ukrainian regions, gathering data and engaging in sabotage against Kiev’s military.

The latest barrage comes after Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu pledged last month to intensify attacks on logistics hubs and warehouses with Western-supplied military equipment.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russians throng to display of Western 'trophy' tanks captured in Ukraine

Western tanks and military hardware captured by Russian forces in Ukraine went on display in Moscow on Wednesday at an exhibition the Russian military said showed Western help would not stop it winning the war.

Long queues of people formed on what was a sunny May Day public holiday at the entrance to the exhibition, entitled "Trophies of the Russian Army," which is being held outside a museum celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

"History is repeating itself," the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement, adding that the Soviet Union had in 1943 also put on a display of captured tanks and hardware, in this case from the German army.

"Strength is in the truth. It's always been that way. In 1943 and today. These war trophies reflect our strength. The more of them there are, the stronger we are," the ministry stated, predicting a Russian victory in what it officially calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

"No Western military equipment will change the situation on the battlefield," the statement added.

According to Western and Ukrainian critics, much of Russia’s military hardware is old or outdated, and Russian battlefield gains have resulted from sheer force of numbers and high casualties. Both sides keep the number of dead and injured a secret but are known to have suffered heavy losses.

The Moscow display, which includes U.S., German and French tanks supplied to Ukraine, came days after the U.S. approved a $61 billion aid package for Kyiv and after Russia made some swift but incremental territorial gains in eastern Ukraine at a time when Kyiv's forces say they lack ammo and manpower.

Ukraine, whose President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says it will eventually push Russian forces from its soil, held a similar exhibition along Kyiv's central boulevard last summer featuring burnt-out husks of Russian tanks and fighting vehicles.

Russia, says the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has itself lost over 3,000 tanks in Ukraine amounting to its entire pre-war active inventory, but has enough lower-quality armoured vehicles in storage for years of replacement and says it is now ramping up production of new tanks.

In addition to tanks, British and Australian armoured vehicles seized in Ukraine are on display in Moscow along with military hardware made in Turkey, Sweden, Austria, Finland, South Africa and the Czech Republic.

State TV's Channel One said the star of the show was a captured American M1 Abrams battle tank, which it said had been taken out by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine using a guided rocket and kamikaze drones.

Clambering over the Abrams holding his microphone, a state TV correspondent told Russians that the tank had been billed in the United States as an indestructible "wonder weapon".

"But that was all nonsense - look at this - all of its reputation has been destroyed," he said.

RT/Reuters