What the war looked like on 10 May 2022

What was the state of the war in Ukraine on 10 May 2022? The picture, assembled from reports of the preceding days, was one of continued siege in Mariupol, strikes on civilian targets elsewhere, and a conflict whose effects were reaching well beyond Ukraine's borders.

Azovstal under assault

The fiercest fighting centred on the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol. On 4 May 2022, Russian forces bombarded the plant with thermobaric missiles, and Mariupol's mayor, Vadym Boychenko, confirmed that contact had been lost with Ukrainian soldiers trapped inside. The same day Ukraine confirmed that Russian troops had entered the plant after launching what it called an all-out assault.

On 5 May 2022, Ukrainian forces said they had repelled a Russian thrust onto the works. Two days later, on 7 May 2022, Ukraine said all women, children and elderly people had been evacuated from the besieged plant.

Also on 4 May 2022, the Associated Press confirmed that approximately 600 people had died in the Mariupol theatre airstrike. That bombing, carried out by Russian forces on 16 March 2022, hit a building used as an air raid shelter that sheltered a large number of civilians. Estimates of the toll had varied widely, from at least 12 to as many as 600.

Strikes in the south and east

On 7 May 2022, four Russian missiles struck the port city of Odesa.

The same day, Russian forces bombed a school in Bilohorivka, in Sievierodonetsk Raion, Luhansk Oblast, during the Battle of Sievierodonetsk. Only two deaths were confirmed, but authorities said about 60 people were believed to have been killed.

Claims at sea

On 6 May 2022, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko claimed that the Russian frigate Admiral Makarov had been struck by Neptune anti-ship missiles off Snake Island. Russia denied having any information about such a strike.

Terms for talks

Also on 6 May 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was open to continuing peace talks with Russia. His conditions were a guarantee of the restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of Ukrainians forcibly evacuated to Russia, and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the country.

Effects beyond Ukraine

The war's consequences were also felt further afield. On 7 May 2022, the Airline Operators of Nigeria announced that all its airlines would suspend domestic flights from the following Monday, in protest at rising fuel prices caused by the war in Ukraine.

On 9 May 2022, Iranians in Moldova were urged to leave the country because of rising tensions in pro-Russian Transnistria and spillover effects from the war in Ukraine.

Taken together, the reports from the days leading up to 10 May 2022 show a war concentrated on a few contested points, above all the Azovstal plant, while its economic and regional effects were spreading to Africa and to Ukraine's neighbour Moldova.