Kyiv Says Six Killed By Russian Shelling During Demining Operation As Air-Raid Sirens Blare

Six explosives experts with Ukraine’s emergency services were killed by Russian shelling while conducting a demining operation in the Kherson region, the head of the State Emergency Service (SES) said on May 6, as air-raid sirens blared throughout much of Ukraine, including in the capital, Kyiv.

“While performing demining tasks in the Kherson region, our pyrotechnicians came under fire. Six of our specialists were killed,” SES chief Serhiy Kruk said on Twitter.

“Terrorists continue to violate all norms of international law.... This is unforgivable!" he added.

Kruk also said that two others, including a female paramedic, had been injured and were being treated at a hospital. Photos of the six slain staffers were included with the online post.

Further details were not immediately available.

Elsewhere, Reuters reported that authorities issued air-raid alerts for much of eastern Ukraine on the evening of May 6. The area affected stretched from Vynnytsya in the west to all eastern regions and south to the Kherson region and Russia-annexed Crimea.

Meanwhile, Russian invading forces continued their assault on Bakhmut, the Ukrainian military reported on May 6, a day after the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary force threatened to pull his fighters out of the besieged Ukrainian city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that Russia has been trying to seize for months amid reportedly rising casualties.

In its daily report on May 6, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Ukrainian forces repelled some 50 attacks in Bakhmut and elsewhere in the Donetsk region, including Maryinka and Avdiyivka.

Russia also launched seven drone strikes at Ukraine overnight with Ukrainian air defenses destroying all of them, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said early on May 6.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said that Russian troops, spearheaded by mercenaries from the private Wagner group, are making every effort to capture Bakhmut by May 9, the date when Moscow celebrates its World War II Victory Day.

"To achieve this, they are bringing in Wagner forces from other battlefields who are being replaced with paratrooper assault units that are currently fighting in the Bakhmut direction," Malyar said on Telegram on May 5.

"The Russians are inclined towars symbolism and their key historic myth is May 9 and they really have established the objective of taking control of Bakhmut by this date," Malyar said separately on Ukrainian television.

Malyar's statement contradicted an apparent threat by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who earlier on May 5 claimed he would withdraw his fighters from Bakhmut in what looked like an escalation of his ongoing feud with Russian Defense Ministry over supplies and support.

SEE ALSO: 'The Whole Army Must Move Forward': Fighting Rages In Bakhmut As Momentum Builds For Ukraine's Counteroffensive  

In a video posted by his press service on May 5, Prigozhin said he would pull out Wagner forces from Bakhmut by May 10 -- the day after the Kremlin’s planned World War II Victory Day commemorations.

"We were supposed to take Bakhmut by May 9, but pseudo-military bureaucrats, who knew about it, literally cut us off from artillery ammunition," Prigozhin said in the video, as he addressed the camera with a group of apparent Wagner soldiers in the background.

AFP reported on May 6 that Prigozhin had asked the Kremlin to allow him to relinquish his positions in Bakhmut to Kremlin-backed authoritarian Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.

"I ask you to issue a combat order before 00:00 on May 10 concerning the transfer of the positions of the Wagner paramilitary units in Bakhmut and its periphery, to the units of the Akhmat battalion," Prigozhin said in a letter to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, referring to Chechen units under Kadyrov’s control.

Reuters quoted Kimberly Marten, a Russia specialist at Barnard College and Columbia University, as saying Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenaries are "essential elements of Russian military intelligence, so we don't believe anything he says."

"This is all smoke and mirrors, so we are just guessing," said Marten, who added that it would be dangerous for a military commander to "broadcast" battlefield moves in advance.

SEE ALSO: The Rise Of Prigozhin: 'Putin's Chef' Steps Further Into The Limelight

Earlier this week, the White House estimated that since December, Russia’s overall casualty tally in Ukraine --- killed and wounded – total at least 100,000. That includes 20,000 Russians killed in action, of which about half of that number were Wagner mercenaries.

“The majority of [that figure] were Russian convicts fighting in Bakhmut,” White House spokesman John Kirby said on May 2.

The Kremlin declined to comment on Prigozhin's remarks, as did the Defense Ministry.

In another video statement released on May 4, Prigozhin was shown standing next to dozens of corpses-- what he called "freshly killed Wagner fighters.” In an expletive-filled rant, he accused Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, the chairman of Russia’s General Staff, of complicity in their deaths, because he said Wagner’s forces aren’t getting enough ammunition.