On 26 April and the morning of 27 April, fighting continued on all fronts in Ukraine with the exception of the blockaded Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
The Russian Armed Forces continued targeting military infrastructure and transport hubs in Ukraine. Although the AFU, in turn, intensified strikes on facilities located directly on Russian territory, the Russian Armed Forces did not attack “decision-making centres”. Earlier, the Russian Armed Forces stated that they would take such actions if the AFU continued strikes on facilities located in Russian cities.
The Russian Defence Ministry has reported that a fortified area of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Mykolayiv Region has been destroyed.
The positions of the Ukrainian units had an extensive network of trenches and equipped firing points.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that Ukrainian servicemen were asked to lay down their arms. Furthermore, those who did not voluntarily lay down their arms were destroyed by artillery fire.
While retreating, the Ukrainian soldiers left small arms, ammunition and over 30 dead servicemen in their positions.
On 26 April, DNR artillery successfully hit AFU positions in the Donetsk direction.
The DPR units seized several fortified positions of the Ukrainian armed forces near Avdiivka, outside Donetsk. Significant losses have been reported in the Ukrainian armed forces.
On 26 April, Zavody, Zarechnoye and the outskirts of Yampol came under Russian control in the Izyum-Slavonic direction. The information was confirmed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ General Staff.
The AFU positions in the Zavody settlement prevented the Russian Armed Forces to advance to Velyka Kamyshevaha. The path is now free. On the morning of 27 April, the advance of the Russian Federation and D/LPR units in the area continued.
On 26 April, the Ukrainian armed forces attempted a counterattack in Rubizhne and Novotoshkivske. The attempt was unsuccessful, the Ukrainian Armed Forces retreated with losses in manpower and equipment.
On 26 April, a group of servicemen from the AFU’s 79th Detached Brigade Combat Team surrendered near Yampil. They surrendered weapons and military equipment.
Columns of heavy military vehicles of the Russian Armed Forces move towards the front.
The offensive in the area of Yampol demonstrates that the TVD is systematically moving directly into the territory of the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration.
The blockade of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol continues. The Russian Armed Forces have no active combat operations over there.
An aerial photo of the plant with the exact coordinates of the bunkers where the remaining Azov regiment fighters are hiding has been circulated on the Internet.
On the morning of 27 April, a second strike was carried out on a railway bridge in Zatoka, Odessa region, Ukraine, which had already sustained damage from the first strike yesterday.
On the morning of 27 April, an AFU Bairaktar UAV was shot down over Kursk Region, Russia.
Over the Russian city of Voronezh, the air defence system was also activated several times.
This morning in the skies near Voronezh, the air defence system detected and successfully destroyed a small reconnaissance UAV. I have the situation under my personal control. There is no threat to the life and health of the region’s residents”, said the Governor of the Voronezh Region, Alexander Gusev.
The video below captured the moment the UAV was hit by a Russian missile in Voronezh.
In Belgorod, a Russian Armed Forces ammunition depot was also struck, apparently using a Bairaktar UAV.
Two Russians with Ukrainian Nazi ideology detained in Belgorod, Russia, while preparing to sabotage a transport facility.
On the night of 27 April, a sabotage by a Ukrainian reconnaissance group was prevented in Transnistria, near the village of Colbasna, where large ammunition and weapons storage facilities are located. Several grenades exploded near the military depots as a result of gunfire contact.
Russian Defence Ministry reports that high-precision long-range sea-launched Kalibr missiles destroyed hangars with a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied by the US and European countries to Ukrainian troops at the Zaporizhzhya aluminium plant.
Russian air defence forces shot down 18 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near the villages of Aleksandrovka, Balakleya, Bryanka, Zaporizhske, Izyum, Kapitolovka, Peremoga, Petrovka, Popasne, Proletarske and Trudolyubovka, including two Bayraktar-TB2 UAVs near the villages of Kolesnikovka and Krasny Liman. In addition, a Ukrainian Tochka-U tactical missile was shot down over the village of Illichivka.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the AFU lost 284 people killed, wounded and prisoners of war in 24 hours. The total losses of dead, wounded and prisoners in the AFU, NGU and PSCs exceeded 45,000.
According to the report of the General Staff of the AFU, it has lost four tanks, six armoured vehicles, nine field artillery guns and mortars, four long- and medium-range air defence systems, two short-range air defence systems, 21 vehicles and special equipment and 22 UAVs.
There are reports from various sources that 3,000 militants of the Turkish far-right organisation Grey Wolves have been transferred to Ukraine.
The arrival of 3,000 Grey Wolves at the Ukrainian-Polish border was first reported about ten days ago, but it has only now become known that they have already been moved to the Kharkiv and Odessa-Mykolaiv directions (three squads of 1,000 fighters each have been deployed). Convoys with Turkish fighters were passing through Zhmerenka – along with heavy equipment and artillery.
Apparently, these units are planned to be used for counterstrikes near Kharkiv and Mykolaiv or for an attack on Transnistria.
Foreign fighters and soldiers from NATO regular units are increasingly replacing exsanguinated Ukrainian army units on the front lines.
The photo below shows a Finnish mercenary unit in Kharkiv.
The conflict is slowly but steadily moving into the phase of full-scale war between Russia and NATO.
