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Maybe it will but "set to fall" and "on the verge of" is not the same as "has fell". For days 10-17 I listened to the media tell us every night how Russia was "closing in" on Kyev.
I mean this sounds pretty dire
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, conceded that Mariupol was now beyond help. The nearest forces that could assist Mariupol’s defenders were 60 miles away and already engaged in battle, he disclosed.
“There is currently no military solution to Mariupol,” he said. “That is not only my opinion, that is the opinion of the military.“
Belarusian railway workers today sabotaged the railway lines leading to Ukraine, making it impossible for the Russians to resupply by train. The Russian logistics situation near Kyiv just went from bad to worse. It’s the largest sabotage action in Belarus so far during this war
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, conceded that Mariupol was now beyond help. The nearest forces that could assist Mariupol’s defenders were 60 miles away and already engaged in battle, he disclosed.
“There is currently no military solution to Mariupol,” he said. “That is not only my opinion, that is the opinion of the military.“
Nothing new. Most sources have written off Mariupol for well over a week now. It won't have that much of an impact on the overall campaign.
The ultimate fall of Mariupol is increasingly unlikely to free up enough Russian combat power to change the outcome of the initial campaign dramatically. Russian forces concentrated considerable combat power around Mariupol drawn from the 8th Combined Arms Army to the east and from the group of Russian forces in Crimea to the west. Had the Russians taken Mariupol quickly or with relatively few losses they would likely have been able to move enough combat power west toward Zaporizhiya and Dnipro to threaten those cities. The protracted siege of Mariupol is seriously weakening Russian forces on that axis, however. The confirmed death of the commander of the Russian 150th Motorized Rifle Division likely indicates the scale of the damage Ukrainian defenders are inflicting on those formations. The block-by-block fighting in Mariupol itself is costing the Russian military time, initiative, and combat power. If and when Mariupol ultimately falls the Russian forces now besieging it may not be strong enough to change the course of the campaign dramatically by attacking to the west.
The people we watched crawl out of the rubble today told us their relatives in Moscow didn't believe them. Videos of their destroyed home were met with 'it's a fake' or 'Nazis did it.' *Every* bond between Ukrainians & Russians - familial, cultural, historical - is being broken.
There is reports (hard to know what is actually true) that Azov battalion was using human shields and not letting them out of the city, it looks like they are either defeated or on the run. Russia seems to have leveled the city. There is Chechen fighters there, it sounds like hell on earth for these citizens. This is a largely Russian speaking city.
A friend of mine was in Mariupol, last contact date is March 2. He was volunteering with food and water deliveries and saw what was going on around the city. He told me, that Azov prohibits leaving the city under the threat of death.
As far as Mariupol being levelled down, it's actually untrue, the army has orders to help evacuation before anything. No bombing of the areas and only rocket strikes into the active areas of fire.
Azov is driven outside of residential areas into Azov Steel Plant. Which is built to withhold nuclear strikes and has hundreds of very strong concrete buildings and underground communications leading outside of the city and into the city..
Having said that, the Russian Army has the same maps as Azov of both undergrounds and all the buildings there. Yet, it's a solid stronghold
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