Kyiv Says Russian Spring Offensive at Peak Intensity

Russian forces have entered the active phase of their spring-summer offensive against Ukraine, but the campaign is already at peak intensity and is "expending resources rather than accumulating" them, Viktor Trehubov, head of the communications department of Ukraine's Joint Forces, said on the national 24/7 newscast cited by Ukrinform. Trehubov said armoured-vehicle use remains minimal — added protection layers only "mean one more drone will be used against it" — and that a battlefield saturated with drones is shifting an increasing share of work to ground robotic systems, with warm, dry weather aiding strike activity.

The peak-intensity message arrived alongside the highest civilian toll of the spring. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported at least 70 civilians killed and more than 500 wounded across the country since the start of May, with 28 deaths and 194 injuries on May 5 alone. Mission Head Danielle Bell called both the scale of casualties and the extent of territory affected in just a few days "particularly alarming." That toll showed up locally on May 7. A Russian drone struck the Novobavarskyi district of Kharkiv, injuring nine people including three children and damaging 38 houses; broader attacks across Kharkiv city and 15 surrounding settlements wounded eight more. In Zaporizhzhia oblast, Governor Ivan Fedorov reported 797 Russian strikes over 24 hours — 23 airstrikes, 569 drone attacks and 204 artillery strikes — killing two and injuring 12. In the Donetsk region, the previous day's tally was three killed and six wounded across Druzhkivka, Shabelkivka, Kramatorsk, Dobropillia, Lyman and Sloviansk; cumulative regional civilian losses now stand at 4,056 dead and 9,400 wounded, excluding Mariupol and Volnovakha.

The day's most lethal single strike was in Kramatorsk, the Donbas hub the Russian command appears to have settled on for the summer. A Russian guided-bomb and drone attack hit the city centre, killing five and starting fires that took into the next day to clean up. Local commentary read the strike, on the heels of three Russian aerial bombs in the same district two days earlier, as a marker for what Trehubov is calling the decisive summer for Ukrainian control of the Donbas.

Diplomacy ran on a separate, fraying track. Volodymyr Zelenskyy dispatched National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umerov to the United States to meet envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a top Ukrainian official told POLITICO. Mediated talks between Moscow and Kyiv have stalled on control over the Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and Zelenskyy has publicly criticised the imbalance in Witkoff's travel schedule — eight trips to Moscow, none to Kyiv — as disrespectful. Umerov's trip is Kyiv's attempt to force the Witkoff-Kushner channel back toward symmetry without breaking the only peace process the war currently has.

Western coalition management surfaced at the Defence24 Days security conference in Warsaw, where Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Poland would overlook Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico's planned May 9 Moscow visit if Fico helps unblock a €90 billion EU loan package for Ukraine. Fico, who has previously blocked EU military and financial aid to Kyiv, told Zelenskyy at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan that Slovakia supports Ukraine's EU accession bid and will not obstruct the loan. Poland and the Baltic states had publicly questioned that pledge; Sikorski's offer was as close to a deal-making opening as the bloc has had on the file.

Ukraine's deep-strike campaign continued to chew at Russian oil economics. Ukrainian drones hit the Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez refinery in Perm, more than 1,500 km from Ukrainian territory, for the second time in eight days; Governor Dmitry Makhonin confirmed one strike on an industrial facility, with others shot down and no casualties. The refinery is one of Russia's largest, with annual processing capacity of 17 million tonnes. Russia's April oil and gas revenues hit 917 billion roubles ($12 billion), almost double March's 443 billion roubles, but were largely offset by 350 billion roubles ($4.7 billion) in subsidies and refinery-repair costs tied to Ukraine's strikes on energy infrastructure, according to the Institute for the Study of War. ISW also reported that strikes are reducing export capacity at the Ust-Luga and Primorsk ports, capping Moscow's ability to capitalise on higher global prices; Finance Minister Anton Siluanov projected a widening fiscal deficit on the back of the same data.