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What happened on 16 May 2022 in Ukraine's war
Summary
A look back at a day of evacuations from Azovstal, a counter-offensive near Kharkiv and a corporate exit from Russia.
What did the war look like on 16 May 2022? It was a day with movement on several fronts, from a steel works in Mariupol to the border near Kharkiv, and beyond the battlefield too.
Azovstal evacuation
In the siege of Mariupol, five buses and an armoured personnel carrier evacuated several hundred soldiers from the Azovstal steel works. The evacuation followed negotiations with the Russian Armed Forces. As reported at the time, the soldiers were to be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war.
Counter-offensive near Kharkiv
Ukraine said its troops had pushed back Russian forces in a counter-offensive and reached the border with Russia. Oleh Synyehubov, the Kharkiv governor, confirmed that Ukrainian forces had restored control of a border crossing with Russia in the region.
Air war and missile strikes
The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had shot down three Ukrainian Air Force warplanes. These included a Su-25 over Mykolaiv and a Su-24 strike jet near Snake Island in the Black Sea.
A day earlier, on 15 May 2022, Russia had launched missile strikes from the Black Sea on what it called military infrastructure in Yavoriv Raion, Lviv Oblast, near Ukraine's western border with Poland. Maksym Kozytskyy, the region's governor, said the target had been completely destroyed.
Warnings over Sweden and Finland
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would react to what he called the expansion of military infrastructure by NATO in Sweden and Finland. He said problems were being created for no reason at all, and that Russia would react accordingly.
A corporate exit
The war's effects also reached the commercial sphere. McDonald's announced that it had begun the process of selling all of its restaurants in Russia, citing the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine as its reason for ending operations there after 32 years. It was later announced that the restaurants would reopen under a new brand in mid-June and that their menus would be retained.
Taken together, the reports from 16 May 2022 show a conflict being fought over a besieged industrial site, a contested border region and the skies over several cities. Its diplomatic and economic consequences were also spreading.
