Mariupol. Putin's Special Operation

"This is just the first step [for Russia]= to gain control of eastern Europe, to destroy democracy in Ukraine."

"We are fighting not only for our independence, but for our survival, for our people so that they do not get killed, tortured and raped."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"There's no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities..."

"Block off this industrial area so that not even a fly can get through."

"Taking control of such an important center in the South as Mariupol is a success."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Smoke rises above Azovstal steelworks, in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo by MARIUPOL CITY COUNCIL /via REUTERS

It was not a glory moment for Vladimir Putin when he was forced by Ukrainian military resistance against Russian troops' orders to enter Kyiv and take it under control so the government could be removed and yet another Russian-puppet could be installed -- and his only possible move left to him in the face of massive Russian losses of men and materiel was to withdraw troops stating his real intention was to contest for the entire Donbas region so it too could be annexed as the Crimean Peninsula was, in 2014

 

If Mr. Putin is committed to anything at this point, close to two months after he launched his surprise 'special operation', it is to cover himself, not to lose any more 'face' in the court of world opinion, and to uphold his champion-standing in the opinion of the Russian public. Capturing Mariupol, the port city on the Sea of Azov is of primary importance to his Donbas-Crimean plan. And Ukrainian forces are inconveniently stalling his intentions.

 

Hundreds of fighters and up to a thousand civilians, including many children are ensconced in dozens of bunkers in the vast underground network of Mariupol's steel fort, the Azovstal plant. Their nuisance presence is stalling the Russian military's strategy of 'liberating' Mariupol. Their frustrating insistence on holding on in the face of a two-month siege is insolently intolerable to the Russian president.

 

That intransigence has led the Russian leader to order his troops to tighten the siege and close in on the plant. In the face of that resistance, it is entirely feasible that Mr. Putin could order those holding out in the plant to be smoked out or to resort to the use of proscribed deadly chemical weapons. The niceties of international war conventions do not appear to have a particularly strong hold on this man's sense of moral appropriateness.

Ukraine's interpretation to these tense periods that present as Mariupol's final hours as a Ukrainian possession, that Putin is anxious to avoid a final clash with Ukrainian forces, lacking troop numbers to ensure the Ukrainians can be defeated in a conventional urban military clash. In addressing the Portuguese parliament recently, Mr. Zelenskyy appealed yet again to the West for more weapons and the imposition of added economic sanctions on Moscow.

Once home to 400,000 people, Mariupol has fought the most intense battle of the war and has suffered the conflict's worse humanitarian consequences where hundreds of thousands of civilians were under Russian siege for close to two months, under constant bombardment. The Azovstal steel complex, one of the larges metallurgical facilities in Europe, covering 11 square km with its huge infrastructure, underground bunkers and tunnels, is a formidable site offering protection to Ukrainians and impotence of action to Russians.

Journalists who managed to reach Mariupol during the siege reported streets littered with corpses, with most buildings destroyed, residents huddling in the cold in cellars, only venturing out to cook sparse amounts of food on makeshift cooking arrangements. According to Ukrainian estimates, tens of thousands of civilians died in Mariupol. Some of whom were found buried in mass graves.

President Putin was informed by his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, that Russia had succeeded in killing over 4,000 Ukrainian troops in the Mariupol campaign, with an additional 1,478 surrendering to Russian forces. In addition Moscow claims to have taken in 140,000 civilian Ukrainians from Mariupol in a humanitarian evacuation from the war zone. To which Kyiv responds that some had been deported by force, a war crime.

An emergency management specialist pauses while searching for the bodies of people killed in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)