What happened on Ukraine's fronts on 12 May 2022?

What did the war look like on 12 May 2022? Across several fronts, it was a day of strikes, counterattacks and sharpening rhetoric.

In Luhansk Oblast, Ukrainian forces repelled an attempted Russian crossing of the Donets river, west of Sievierodonetsk. As reported at the time, at least one Russian battalion tactical group was destroyed, along with the pontoon bridge deployed for the crossing.

Missiles on Kremenchuk

Further west, in Poltava Oblast, the Russian Air Force launched around a dozen missiles at the city of Kremenchuk. Four of them were aimed at the Kremenchuk Oil Refinery.

Context from the days before

The day followed a period of continued pressure on the south. On 11 May 2022, Russian forces kept firing missiles at the port city of Odesa, in what appeared to be an attempt to cut supplies to the city.

In the north-east, Ukrainian forces had on 11 May 2022 recaptured several settlements north of Kharkiv. That pushed Russian troops back to less than a dozen miles from the Russian border.

A warning to Helsinki

The diplomatic front also saw a new threat on 12 May 2022. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would take retaliatory steps against Finland, including steps of a "military-technical" nature, if the country joined NATO.

Taken together, the reports from 11 and 12 May 2022 showed a war being fought at once along a river line in Luhansk, around the outskirts of Kharkiv, against a port in the south and against industrial infrastructure in central Ukraine, while Moscow's warnings extended to a neighbouring state weighing NATO membership.