What the reports showed in Ukraine's regions by 10 May 2022
A look back at the situation in Mariupol, Luhansk Oblast, Odesa and elsewhere in the days before 10 May 2022.
What did the picture across Ukraine's regions look like on 10 May 2022? The reports from the preceding days described a country under attack in the south and east, with civilians bearing much of the cost, and a few other developments away from the front.
Mariupol and the Azovstal plant
The fighting around the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol dominated the reporting. On 4 May 2022, Russian forces bombarded the plant with thermobaric missiles, and Mariupol 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 steel works after launching what it called an all-out assault.
On 5 May 2022, Ukrainian forces said they had repelled a Russian thrust onto the site. Two days later, on 7 May 2022, Ukraine said all women, children and elderly people had been evacuated from the besieged plant.
On 4 May 2022 the Associated Press also confirmed that about 600 people had died in the airstrike on the Mariupol theatre. That strike took place on 16 March 2022, when the building was being used as an air raid shelter for a large number of civilians.
Luhansk Oblast and Odesa
On 7 May 2022, Russian forces bombed a school in Bilohorivka, in Sievierodonetsk Raion of Luhansk Oblast. Only two deaths were confirmed at first, but about sixty people were believed to have been killed. The bombing took place during the Battle of Sievierodonetsk.
The same day, four Russian missiles struck the port city of Odesa.
Away from the front
Not all of the regional news came from the front. On 4 May 2022, twenty-six people were killed when a minibus, a bus and a fuel truck collided in Rivne Oblast.
On 8 May 2022, the U.S. First Lady, Jill Biden, made an unannounced visit to Uzhhorod, in western Ukraine. She met Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska there on Mother's Day.
The picture on 10 May 2022
Taken together, the reports from the days before 10 May 2022 showed a war concentrated on the port city of Mariupol, on Luhansk Oblast in the east and on the Black Sea coast at Odesa. In Mariupol the fate of the soldiers inside Azovstal remained unresolved. In Luhansk Oblast the full toll of the Bilohorivka bombing was still uncertain. In the west, the Uzhhorod visit showed that international attention extended to the country's far-western regions.
