Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on May 5 that Russia is trying "with all its might" to seize Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast by May 9, the day Russia celebrates victory over Nazi Germany.

Over the years, the public holiday has been widely used by Russian propaganda, turning it into a show of military force.

Maliar added Russia's Wagner Group mercenaries are being redeployed from other positions and replaced with airborne assault units to capture embattled Bakhmut after almost a year of intense fighting in the area.

Meanwhile, Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that the mercenaries would withdraw from Bakhmut on May 10 due to a "70 percent shortage of ammunition."

"I am withdrawing Wagner units from Bakhmut because, in the absence of ammunition, they are doomed to a senseless death," Prigozhin said in a video published on May 5.

The Bakhmut offensive will be handed over to the Russian Defense Ministry, Prigozhin added.

Prigozhin, known as 'Putin's chef' for catering contracts with the Kremlin and Russia's Defense Ministry, lashed out at the Russian military command again for the alleged failure to provide his mercenaries with artillery shells.

In an expletive-laden video address, Prigozhin blamed Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov for the lack of ammo that caused the deaths of his mercenaries on the battlefield.

The U.S. intelligence estimated that Russia had suffered 100,000 military casualties in the last five months in the Bakhmut sector and elsewhere in Ukraine. The estimated number suggests over 20,000 Russian troops were killed in action, around half of which were the Wagner mercenaries.

Prigozhin has repeatedly complained about ammunition shortages, blaming Russia's top military leadership and threatening to abandon positions in and around Bakhmut if Wagner mercenaries would be denied additional supplies.

The Wagner mercenaries have served as the main attacking force in Russia's attempts to seize Bakhmut and the entire Donetsk Oblast, more than half of which it currently occupies.

The Battle of Bakhmut has been raging on since last June. Russian troops have only made incremental gains, experiencing heavy casualties in the area. Ukraine still holds western parts of the city.

Russia keeps its primary military goal of capturing Donetsk Oblast.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in its evening update on May 5 that Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka remain the primary targets of Russia's offensive in the region.

Ukraine's forces repelled more than 30 Russian attacks in these areas on May 5, the military said.

According to the General Staff, the most severe fighting is ongoing in Bakhmut and Marinka, a small industrial town north of Russian-occupied Donetsk.

Apart from Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces also attacked Sumy, Chernihiv, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson oblasts with artillery, missiles, and guided bombs, according to the military.