The Battle for Bakhmut

"Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut."

"Only one route [out] is left."

"The pincers are closing."

"I appeal to the President of Ukraine. ... If earlier the professional Ukrainian army fought with us, today we see more and more old people and children. They are fighting, but their life in Bakhmut is short -- a day, two. Give them the opportunity to leave the city."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader, Wagner Mercenaries

 

"[The situation  is] critical [with fighting going on] around the clock."

"They take no account of their losses in trying to take the city by assault. The task of our forces in Bakhmut is to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. Every metre of Ukrainian land costs hundreds of lives to the enemy."

"There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them."

Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander, National Guard of Ukraine

Ukrainian soldiers have for months been trying to fend off Russian assaults on Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

Russian troops and their mercenaries continue to pour artillery toward the last access roads leading  to the besieged city of Bakhmut. Moscow is approaching ever closer to its first major victory in a six-month period that saw it reeling under a succession of Ukrainian assaults in a counteroffensive that has pushed Russian troops back to the border and a number of towns and cities evacuated by the Russian military forces, left in ruins, the remnants of their populations welcoming the arrival of the Ukrainian troops in liberation mode.

 

Speaking via video, the head of Russia's Wagner group, the private army comprised of mercenaries augmented more recently with convicted criminals taking the Wagner offer to serve on the front in Ukraine for their prison sentences to be written off. The untrained convicts have been sent to their deaths essentially, used as cannon fodder. Their deaths haven't seemed to bother the Wagner leader one iota. But he jeers at Ukraine, warning that if Ukrainian fighters are not removed from the encircled city this will be their fate, too.

 

Intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut in an apparent effort to block Ukrainian forces' access in and out of the city is ongoing. In the close-by town of Khromove a bridge was damaged by Russian tank shelling. Ukrainian soldiers working to repair damaged roads - more troops heading toward the frontline, signalling that Ukraine has no intentions just yet of giving up Bakhmut.

 

Ukrainian troops were digging new trenches for defensive positions, to the west. Presumably in preparation for an anticipated spring counteroffensive. A video clip showing Wagner fighters released by Russia's RIA state news agency, has the fighters walking through a damaged industrial factory with one of the fighters overheard to say that Ukraine is destroying infrastructure in settlements near Bakhmut in prevention of the Russian encirclement.

 

On Friday the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, Eleksandr Syrskyi visited Bakhmut for briefings with local commanders on how best to increase the defence capacity of frontline forces. Bakhmut's pre-war population of 70,000 has been reduced to a few thousand who decided to remain. The city's capture would represent a prize after a costly winter offensive for Russia following the calling up of hundreds of thousands of reservists.

 

A group of Ukrainian servicemen rest after leaving Bakhmut on Friday.(AP Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka)

According to Russia, Bakhmut's capture would represent a stepping stone to the capture of the surrounding industrialized Donbas region. The leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prifozhin, called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order a retreat from Bakhmut if he wanted to save the lives of his embattled soldiers. In the video three captured Ukrainians -- a grey-bearded older man and two boys -- were asking to be permitted to return home.

 

Robert Brovdi, commander of a Ukrainian drone unit active in Bakhmut revealed in a video posted on social media that his unit was ordered to withdraw immediately by the military. He had been fighting in Bakhmut for 110 days. In the past several days alarm has arisen in Russia realizing its own potential vulnerability following a report out of Moscow that a number of drones had attacked targets deep within Russian territory. Moscow also reported a described armed cross-border raid.

 

Russia's Security Council was ordered by President Putin to step up "anti-terrorism measures". Ukrainians offering a measure of the violence that Moscow has ordered to take place in Ukraine, back to Russia is terrorism, whereas Russia's invasion is a noble enterprise to free Ukrainians from the tyranny of 'fascism'. A delusional complete reversal of reality.

 

A self-propelled artillery vehicle in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Thursday.(AP Photo: Iryna Rybakova)

Russia -- At War With Ukraine -- and Europe

"Now the geography is different, it's far from being just the DPR and LPR  [Donetsk Peoples Republic/Luhansk Peoples Republic], it's also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories [beyond he Donbas which the Russian military has wholly or partially sized]."

"This process is continuing logically and persistently."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

 

"[Moscow is using a similar] playbook [to its takeover of Crimea, when it annexed the Ukrainian peninsula by organizing a sham referendum in 2014]."

"[I am] exposing [the Russian plans] so the world knows that any purported annexation is premeditated, illegal and illegitimate. [There will be a quick response from the U.S. and its allies]."

"[Areas targeted for annexation included Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk; regions Lavrov claims are now Russian objectives]."

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby 

A Russian soldier stands guard in Kherson, Ukraine. Moscow’s war aims now extend to the southern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia  AP

 

As fortunes change in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its original intention to march on Kyiv, occupy Ukraine's capital and decapitate its government failed as a result of Ukraine's lack of cooperation in allowing itself to return to the satellite status of years gone by under the Soviet Union. Ukrainian resistance proved too great, its military prowess too successful in destroying Russian war materiel and servicemen for the Kremlin to sustain, so its troops were withdrawn.

And a face-saving proclamation was made with proper pomp and little ceremony that Moscow's goal, after all, was to secure the entire Donbas, eastern Ukraine's industrial heartland, to be administered by ethnic Russian Ukrainian opponents of an independent Ukraine. Ukrainian resistance to Moscow's plans for its future continue to aggravate the Kremlin with its growing and successful counter-offensive. While all of Luhansk is now in Russian control, the Donetsk region remains elusive.

Yet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claims it's full steam ahead on the Kremlin's new strategy to widen its ambitions and expand the conflict beyond the Donbas. Russia responding to what Lavrov speaks of as the interference of Western powers who annoyingly continue to provide Kyiv with long-range weaponry like the US.-produced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

US-supplied long range weapons have changed Moscow's calculus, Mr Lavrov says   Getty Images

 

Five months of Russian troops bashing Ukrainian towns and cities, reducing hospitals, schools and apartment buildings as well as military installations to rubble have failed to produce the unequivocal victory that Moscow claims is rightfully theirs as a defender of freedom from fascism of the people of Ukraine. A people that have ungratefully viewed the destruction of their nation's infrastructure with alarm and hatred toward the aggressor.

As punishment for Ukraine's steadfast defence against its neighbour's intentions, Moscow is looking further in preparation of formally annexing seized territory. Russia wanted "blood, not talks", commented Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, commenting on Moscow's intransigence in insisting that fascists ruled Ukraine and it is Russia's duty as a good neighbour intent on securing its own security, to demolish cities, create millions of homeless and refugees and murder thousands of civilians.

This, as Russian President Vladimir Putin warns Europe that gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, shuttered for weeks for maintenance, remained at risk of an even more reduced flow; a classic case of turning the screw as a punishment for Europe's response sanctioning Russia over its illegal occupation of a third of Ukraine.

 

Russia's Invasion of Ukraine: Not Quite Going To Plan

"The occupiers cannot win on the battlefield, so they resort to the killing of civilians."

"After the enemy was dislodged from Snake Island, he decided to respond with the cynical shelling of civilian targets."

Ivan Bakanov, head, SBU, Ukraine security service

"These missiles, Kh-22, were designed to destroy aircraft carriers and other large warships, and the Russian army used them against an ordinary nine-storey building with ordinary civilian people [within it]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"[The Russian pullback from Snake Island bears] colossal psychological significance [for Ukraine]."

"Snake Island is key for controlling the Black Sea and could help cover the Russian attack if the Kremlin opted for an amphibian landing operation in Odesa or elsewhere in the region."

"Now, those plans are pushed back."

Oleh Zhdano, Ukrainian military analyst

Russia said it pulled out its forces from Ukraine's Snake Island as a 'goodwill gesture.' Ukraine’s military, however, said the Russians fled after relentless attacks by its forces.

 

At great cost, both to the aggressor and to the victim, Ukrainian resolve in responding in kind to the Russian military, using all means at their disposal to defend and push back the enemy invader. A choreograph that has provided a dramatic war theatre totally unexpected in the courage displayed by Ukrainians in their time of existential crisis while at the same time amply demonstrating the lack of military expertise and personnel coordination an invading military as well equipped as Russia's has the potential to encounter in its losses of senior military personnel and equipment.

The Kremlin, along with Vladimir Putin must be writhing in futile fury over the time, personnel and material being consumed by this ill-advised venture they so confidently launched. Not to mention how degraded their reputation has become throughout the international community as a viciously despised tyranny whose irenic display of territorial aggression has appalled the free world. The far-reaching effect of Russia's costly war in lives and infrastructure, has placed food dependent nations in a vulnerable position, awaiting a replacement source of grains and edible oils.

Russia is fuelling the cost of its misadventure with gas and oil sales to energy-hungry nations that have become energy-dependent on its natural resources. And despite Europe beginning to wean itself away from consuming Russian resources, China and India have stepped into the breach. The price of fuel has escalated thanks to the conflict, as has food products and Russia is the beneficiary of those higher prices. A conflict whose complications have embroiled not only Europe but the broader world community.

 

Ukrainian soldiers run for cover during an artillery duel between Ukrainian and Russian troops in Lysychansk. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Yet another Russian airstrike on residential areas in Ukraine has once again demolished civic buildings and destroyed Ukrainian civilian lives. The small town of Serhilvka, relatively near Odeaa was hit by three missiles aimed at civilian areas and taken as representative of payback by the Kremlin for the humiliation of having to withdraw from the strategic Snake Island because of Ukrainian military bombardment against the Russian military stationed there.

Back in the initial stages of the invasion, the Russian navy took control of the island planning to use it as a stage for an eventual assault on Odesa, the largest port in Ukraine, and headquarters of its navy. From the start to the present, the Russian military has deliberately targeted civilian enclaves; hospitals, apartment buildings, schools, despite claiming it does no such thing. Kyiv and its regions were struck by Russian missiles again last weekend following calm after the Russian military retreat when plans to occupy Kyiv were foiled.

A shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk where scores of people died was also carried out last week. Russian forces continue their strategy in eastern Ukraine to encircle the city of Lysychansk representing the final stronghold of resistance in Luhansk, which beside Donetsk, make up the Donbas region. "The shelling of the city is very intensive. The occupiers are destroying one  house after another with heavy artillery and other weapons. Residents of Lysychansk are hiding in basements almost round the clock", advised Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidal.

Buildings destroyed by a military strike are seen in Lysychansk. (Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters)

Ukrainian Reprisals Against Russian Collaborators

"This terrorist activity requires special attention."

"This is nothing but a terrorist attack and we should treat it as such."

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman

Russian occupation forces inspect a car damaged in a car bomb attack attributed to Kherson partisan resistance. The target, Yevhen Soboliev, a local collaborator, was reported to survive. Photo: Suspilne

 

Russia's 'special military operation' which the Kremlin uses as an acceptable code-nomenclature for forcing a violent conflict on its neighbour is strictly legitimate, as the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin have explained nauseatingly frequently to their critics. It is, in fact, they explain, a liberation movement designed to free Ukrainians from the intolerable shackles of fascism under which the nation is held ransom to its neo-Nazi government. 

Ukraine's decision to remain true to itself, from the government to its military to every faithful citizen by fighting back, by opposing the invasion, on the other hand, is held by Moscow to be criminal activity, terrorism, no less. And while it is perfectly acceptable and normal and courageous for Russian forces to invade its neighbour, to wreak havoc and destruction, create millions of internally displaced, of refugees, the destruction of entire towns and villages, when Ukrainian troops manage to shoot projectiles over the border into Russian towns, it is symbolic of Ukrainian fascism.

Western nations, that have publicly and frequently lauded the courage of Ukraine and of its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy who has become a symbol of defiant courage under fire -- lavish Ukraine with best wishes, and send along military equipment in an effort to equalize the lop-sided condition of a well-armed massive military pummeling an ill-equipped smaller military in the hopes that Ukrainian mettle and valour will end up victorious over Russian lack of both -- are yet loathe to provoke the Russian Bear.

Lest a wider conflict, as Moscow threatens, develops and envelopes the entire continent and beyond. In which case rocketry can be provided, but not those powerful enough with the long range that might conceivably be shot into Russia by Ukrainian troops. For Russia's border is sacrosanct, while Ukraine's is permeable and disposable. And to think that Ukrainian fighters have been scheming resolute attacks on separatists among them willing to work with Russia makes the Kremlin beyond furious in its condemnation of Ukrainian 'terrorism'.

Mysterious attacks have been taking place in the last month or so whereby collaborators with the Russian invasion and in support of the Luhansk and Donetsk ethnic Russian Ukrainian separatists have been targeted. The Russian occupation administration in Kherson has been particularly targeted. A signal that Ukraine is rather displeased with the Kremlin's plans to purloin more huge tracts of Ukrainian territory, beyond its 2014 seizure of Crimea. The more recent predation envelopes Ukraine's industrial heartland.

And there, in the Donbas, car-bomb assassinations have selected various Russian separatist-appointed officials. Ukrainian resistance fighters executing assaults against collaborators with the Russian occupation. Friday morning saw one such blast in the outskirts of Kherson when head of the local agency for families, youth and sports Dmytro Savluchenko, was eliminated by a car bomb. A veritable flurry of unexplained bombs targeting Russian collaborators in southern Ukraine have been carried out by Ukrainian partisans who don't consider themselves to be terrorists.

The residents of Kherson showed strong resistance when Russian forces occupied the city in early March    Credit: AP Photo/Olexandr Chornyi

Russia's Hollow Victory

"The Russian army has started very intensive destruction of the town of Sievierodonetsk, the intensity of shelling doubled."

"They are shelling residential quarters, destroying house by house."

"We do not know how many people died, because it is simply impossible to go through and look at every apartment."

Serhiy Gaidai, Luhansk governor 

"This will be the critical next few weeks of the conflict."

"And it depends on how effective they are at conquering Sievierodonetsk and the lands across it."

Mathieu Boulegue, Chatham House think tank, London

Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting via teleconference on May 17    EPA

The riverside town of Sievierodonetsk is being bombarded by Russian troops in a major assault for the last Ukrainian-held territory in Luhansk where Moscow claims ethnic Russian separatists have moved the area solidly into Russian possession. A massive artillery bombardment as a last bastion in Luhansk is hammering Sievierodonetsk to solidify Russian possession of one of two northeastern provinces into Russian territory.

Both the city and its twin, Lyshchanak located on the Siverskiy Donets river's opposite bank represent a Ukrainian-held pocket in the east that Russia has focused on overrunning since mid-April, once its campaign to capture Kyiv had failed. According to Ukraine's general staff, in an offensive on Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine forces had pushed the offensive back along a stretch of the front line. 

Some military analysts view the advance of Russian forces on the Luhansk front as a major drive to achieve Russia's less ambitious war aims, to capture increased territory that pro-Russian rebels claim. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu claimed the "Liberation of the Luhansk People's Republic" would soon be completed.

The conditions in the Donbas, including Luhansk and its neighbour Donetsk province are "hell", according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the region has been completely destroyed: by Russian troops. Which speaks volumes about the Russian campaign, claiming Ukraine territory as its own by tradition and right of arms in a bid to force Ukraine to 'voluntarily' cede land to Russia. What Russia stands to gain if it manages to complete its takeover of the Donbas is a smoking, crushed ruin.

Moscow anticipates the face-saving issue of the capture of Luhansk and Donetsk, in finally being able to claim a 'victory' since it had announced this to be its objective. That goal came closer to reality when Ukraine ordered its garrison in the port city of Mariupol to stand down following a siege of close to three months. A situation that Russia celebrates as a 'surrender' and Ukraine defends as a 'withdrawal' for the purpose of preserving the lives of Ukrainian servicemen. 

More than 1,700 soldiers in the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, have surrendered since Monday, Russian authorities said. Here, Ukrainian servicemen sit in a bus after arriving under escort of the pro-Russian military in Olenivka in the Donetsk region on Friday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

 

Roughly two thousand Ukraine militia members have so far surrendered at the Azovstl metalworks. The question of how many Ukrainian fighters surrendered has not been confirmed by Kyiv, but Britain's estimate is that a large force had laid down arms, the estimate placed at around 1,700. An unknown number of fighters remained within the underground labyrinth of the steelworks, unprepared to surrender their defense of the ruined city. 

An unknown number of troops remain in the sprawling complex, seen here on Friday, which is the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic port city — a target from the start of the Russian invasion nearly three months ago. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Ukraine's military command had assured the city's defenders they could emerge and save their lives. The commander of the Azov Battalion, the unit that has defended the steelworks, confirmed the order to halt fighting was being carried out, stating that all civilians and wounded fighters were removed from the plant. "The situation is really hard and horrible and my husband is on the way from one hell to another hell, from Azovstal steel plant to a prison, to captivity", the wife of one soldier lamented.

The Red Cross undertook registration of hundreds of Ukrainians surrendering as prisoners of war. Moscow claims the prisoners will be given humane treatment under internationally-recognized war conventions. Russian politicians on the other hand, claim some of the Ukrainian soldiers must be tried for crimes, and even executed, presumably as neo-Nazi fascists, as Vladimir Putin has so often claimed them to be. 

A convoy of pro-Russian troops is seen before the evacuation of wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the besieged steel mill on Monday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Russia is desperate to emerge from this vicious fiasco it has created, with some semblance of pride in its enterprise. One that has crushed its reputation as thoroughly as the bombardment of Ukraine's towns, villages and cities have been crushed by Russia's war machines. The Kremlin's orders to its troops to succeed in its noble enterprise of striking civilian targets, killing civilians by the thousands, destroying their homes and creating millions of displaced and refugees have created a living hell for innocent people.

 Not so happily for Russia, military analysts maintain that Russia's resources to achieve its goal of capturing the entire Donbas may yet fail, owing to scarcity of resources. In hopes of bolstering its war effort, Moscow's parliament is considering a bill to invite Russians over age 40 and foreigners age 30 and over to join the military.

Russia's Special Military Operation in Ukraine

"There was an attack on Kyiv -- it shocked me, not because I'm here but because Kyiv is a sacred city for Ukrainians and Russians alike."

"[The Security Council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine.This was] a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger."  

"Let me be very clear: [it...Security Council] failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war." 

"I am here to say to you Mr President [Zelenskyy], and to the people of Ukraine, we will not give up." "[While the Security Council had been] paralyzed, [the UN was taking other actions]." 

"The UN is the 1,400 staff members in Ukraine who are working to provide assistance, food, cash [and] other forms of support."

"Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis. Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance, many are elderly and in need of medical care, or have limited mobility. They need an escape route out of the apocalypse."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

 

"[The blasts are] proof that we need a quick victory over Russia."

"We must act quickly ... more weapons, more humanitarian efforts ... because every day Ukraine pays a high price for the protection of democracy and freedom."

Andrey Yermak, chief of staff, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Smoke rises after missiles landed at sunset on April 28, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (John Moore/Getty Images)

A member of the United Nations Security Council took especial notice with the UN's Secretary General appearing in Kyiv, to give him a surprise welcome. Warm, in the sense that two missiles blasted the historic city while Antonio Guterres was there, visiting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to see for himself what the population of Russia's neighbour is suffering under an endless barrage of bombs and missiles.

And while Mr. Guterres hugely regretted that the Security Council failed to intervene to convince one of its permanent members that invading another country with violent intent, even naming it a 'liberation' move under a special military operation is uncivilized at best, criminal in its most severe outlook. But then, Russia is accustomed to being misunderstood and blamed for events it is not responsible for. As Vladimir Putin would have it, he was provoked by American interference.

Moreover, the events described as war crimes -- rapes, destruction of civic infrastructure, mass graves are not his doing; they are in reality the malevolent orchestration developed by Ukraine that devised a grisly scenario of ghastly atrocities, enacted by Ukraine's own military and then ascribed to Russia. This is the kind of adversary Moscow faces, a fascist, neo-Nazi Ukrainian administration impudently accusing solicitous Russia of ill intentions toward Ukraine.

American and NATO provocations have brought this situation to pass, not Russian aggression. Russia will always enter the fray to protect its interests, to ensure that Russian-speaking citizens of a neighbouring country are not victimized by Russia-hating neighbours. Those two missiles fired at long range into Kyiv Thursday were just a friendly reminder that Moscow expects Kyiv to do the right thing and surrender its war-mongering government to Russia.

After all, Russian troops withdrew from the suburbs around Kyiv. To focus on the Donbas, where Luhansk and Donetsk are already declared Russian territories. The intention, of course, just to tidy things up, drive the Ukrainian military out of its lair there and leave both Republics in peace. Just incidentally Mariupol's destiny is to welcome its new status, contributing to the land bridge delivering  a direct route from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.

 

A destroyed apartment building in the southern port city of Mariupol

 Moscow is thoroughly displeased with its nemesis, the United States. Not only has the White House pledged a $33-billion gift in humanitarian and food security and weaponry aid to Ukraine, it has outright stated its hope that Ukrainian forces beyond repelling Russia's assault on the east, but succeed to a degree that Russia's military will be reduced in strength so it cannot continue to threaten its neighbours. Russia, a threat to its neighbours? What effrontery; the U.S. is revealing its mendacious spirit, wounding Russia beyond mere words.

Now entrenched in the east, Russian forces are focusing on the separatist Russian-speaking rebels' success in accessing the entire Donbas along with the secession provinces. The southern city of Kherson, the sole regional capital captured by Russia's military since the invasion had overnight blasts to awaken its still-stunned residents. Whose Wednesday pro-Ukrainian protests were faced by Russian troops using tear gas and stun grenades in their peaceful occupation.

Moscow has reported a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Issuing a stern warning that such attacks risk escalation to a significant degree. In the Russian city of Bellgorod two large explosions occurred. It is simply outrageous that Ukraine would take their battle with Russia into Russia, endangering the lives of innocent Russians...

.

Mariupol: No Food, No Water, No Heat, No Hope

"This is not a martyr city. It is a fighter city. And we are not in the past, we are in the present, you understand?"

"While we are here, Mariupol continues to be Ukrainian."

"Have you thought about how it is to be here, to fight in such conditions? It's when they text you, 'How are you, buddy?' when five minutes ago you put down a black bag with a brother you knew for seven  years."

Systoslav Palamar, captain, Azov regiment, Ukraine

 

"Russian occupation forces used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military and civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an enemy drone."

"The victims have respiratory failure...the effects of the unknown substance are being clarified."

Azov Regiment

 

"Mariupol is the heart of this war today. It is beating. We're fighting. We're strong. And if it stops beating, we will be in a weaker position. They are people who are distracting a big part of the enemy forces. The stronger our position in Mariupol, the stronger our position in the east of the country will be."

"And if they are stronger, the negotiation table will be closer and we will have advantages in the dialogue."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"If and when it does fall, then those forces engaged there are free to attack north to attempt to join up with those forces that are attacking south from Izyum."

"The Ukrainians are now going to face effectively a pincer move."

"The fall of Mariupol has been long predicted by many and the forces there continue to fight extremely bravely."

Western Official

A Russian soldier patrols at a theatre in Mariupol on April 12, the day of a media trip organized by Russia's military. Ukrainian authorities are investigating unverified claims that the Russians used chemical weapons in this besieged Black Sea port.  Getty Images

Mariupol is the eastern Ukraine city that has held out under all the firepower that Moscow could muster to ensure a quick and early victory in occupying the city of 400,000 people, most of whom have fled in the month of unrelenting Russian bombardments. Bombs and artillery targeting civil infrastructure, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools; no civilian structure is immune from destruction, from maternity hospitals to children's hospitals. 

Although the claim of chemical weapons being used by Russia have not yet been verified, it follows an event where Eduard Basurin, speaking for the Russian-backed 'Donetsk People's Republic' informed Russian state television that the Kremlin may instruct Russian forces in Ukraine to resort to chemical weapons to make quicker work of overcoming Ukrainian resistance to Russia's occupation and control of Mariupol. 

 

Just as the global community and military experts from around the world are nonplussed over Russia's inability to make headway in its plan to swiftly obliterate Ukrainian resistance to the invasion, so too has Mariupol left an incredulous audience worldwide that it has succeeded in fending off the Russian plan,to the present. In the city, tens of thousands of residents have been killed by the invading troops, even while Russia has itself lost an astonishing number of its servicemen and generals overall.

 

Russian troops started their encirclement of Mariupol in early March, gradually tightening the noose   AFP via Getty Images

Mariupol was targeted at the beginning of March when Russian forces from Crimea and Donbas connected to encircle the city. Since that time the Russian forces have experienced a lag in supplies and equipment. Mariupol however, soon found itself deprived of essential utilities when water and electricity was cut off by Russian troops along with communication infrastructure. Since then, as intended, the city residents and its defenders trapped in the city have faced arduous living conditions.

 

Infrequent updates from residents of the city to the world press describe the harrowing conditions Mariupol's residents are forced to live under. Tens of thousands of the residents have managed one way or another, through perilous escape corridors, risking deliberate bombing and artillery attacks, to escape the besieged city. An estimated 100,000 residents remain trapped in the city facing constant shelling, and a lack of food, water and medicines.

 

Block by block, the city has been reduced through unrelenting bombing, to a faint outline of what it so recently was; a modern city. Everywhere can be seen the bombed-out exteriors of ruined buildings, their interiors gutted, rubble piled high. And under that rubble, the crushed remains of what were once thriving human beings. The Azov's Palamar spoke by video from the bunker he was sheltered in, of steep casualties where subalterns were forced to take command of battalions, and a constant dearth of potable water.

 

Vicious street-to-street, house-to-house battles see a few thousand Ukrainian marines, border guards and Azov regiments fighting Russian infantry. The Ukrainian defences are fighting for their country, their ideals, their survival. The Russian forces are fighting to achieve the goals they were commanded to bring as a victory to their president. It is believed that the Ukrainian forces are confined to a few isolated pockets they are defending. The largest on the Azovstal Iron and Steel works.

 

Ukraine's 36th Marines posted a communique that it was close to running out of ammunition, anticipating the "final battle".  "From now on, it is hand-to-hand combat, then death for some of us and captivity for others", the communique noted. The response on social media by Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the mayor of Mariupol, was that the marines' Facebook page had been hacked to produce a false post.

It is believed Ukraine's forces have been forced back to the port area and the Azovstal iron and steel plant   Anadolu News Agency, via Getty

 

 

Moscow in Retreat?

"The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas."

Sergei Rudskoi, head, Main Operational Directorate, Russian General Staff

"Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian forces falling back on over-extended supply lines, have allowed Ukraine to reoccupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 km east of Kyiv."

British intelligence report

"I'm not sure that anything that the Russian military will do will change the balance. It's more about patching up gaps."

"They're going to be brought in as fresh bodies primarily, to replenish the losses ... folks who are suggesting they're bringing in everybody they can for one big push to break Ukrainian resistance -- I don't see that as possible now."

Dmitry Gorenburg, Russian military expert with think-tank CNA

An armoured convoy of pro-Russia troops in the Donetsk region © Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Mission partially completed, signals Moscow, now on to auxiliary mission... Russia has initiated a draw of forces from Georgia into Ukraine, badly needed reinforcements to make up for the unfortunate loss of Russian servicemen falling to the ferocious defense by the Ukrainian military. According to Moscow, no such thing, a mere handful, not the gross numbers quoted by Western intelligence, have fallen. The decision to bring in reinforcement from Georgia is only fair; they're no longer needed there to repress protests, so they're being given the opportunity to earn their keep, in Ukraine.

 

It has been a month since Russia invaded Ukraine and met with the surprise of fierce Ukrainian resistance, when Ukrainians failed to realize they were meant to greet the invaders as saviours, welcoming them with appreciative open arms. Instead Ukraine's citizens have been arming themselves in defence of their nation against the brute mechanized force of a volatile, oppressive and dangerous neighbour. One who has flouted all 'civilized' rules of conflict; an invasion where no threat exists leading to ceaseless, deliberate bombing and shelling of civilian infrastructure and the mass murder of innocent people. 

The cities of Ukraine have been bombarded and encircled, residential areas laid to waste, as up to three-and-a-half million of Ukraine's 44-million-strong population has been terrorized and displaced, thousands killed, others turning in desperation to find haven in sympathetic, Russia-aversive neighbouring countries. To which the Russian Defence Ministry addressed itself claiming its first phase of operations completed, it would turn its focus on the 'liberation' of the eastern Donbas region.

 

Heavily damaged residential buildings in the town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region © Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

 

The thousands of Russian troops stationed at military bases ranging from Georgia to Syria to Tajikistan, many in motorized rifle brigades, combat-capable and ready to deploy on orders from the Kremlin have not yet been called to duty in Ukraine. There is the trifling matter that withdrawing troops in those outposts would result in losses there. The Kremlin appears not quite prepared to order them wholly to disperse to Ukraine in a boost to the Russian ground offensive there.

The reality on the ground with heavy losses of servicemen, including the unprecedented losses of generals in the field mere weeks following the beginning of the invasion has shone a spotlight on an ill-conceived and poorly executed military manoeuvre destined to fail, in the face of a badly reduced 'combat power'. Up to 15,000 Russian troops, according to NATO, have been killed in the war up to the present, a number that Russia denies, citing a loss of 1,351 of its servicemen.

In any event, should an influx of reinforcements be brought in to relieve the beleaguered troops in Ukraine the course of the war seems unlikely to improve for Russia, given the vulnerability exposures that would eventuate in the redeployment of foreign-based troops in other global hot-spots controlled by Moscow. Reality is Volodymyr Borysenko, the mayor of an eastern suburb, the locale of Kyiv's main airport, reporting a call to clear out civilians to enable Ukrainian troops to counterattack.

Ukrainian forces have been planning and executing an encirclement of Russian troops on the main front outside Kyiv, in the suburbs of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel. Troops that will be ordered to deploy to the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, to 'secure' the Donbas for Russia in its plans to eviscerate Ukraine, a scheme that began when Vladimir Putin decided to gift Crimea back to Russia.

A destroyed tank lies amid rubble in northern Mariupol © Maximilian Clarke/SOPA Images/dpa

 

At the same time Sinopec Group, the largest oil refiner in Asia, has halted discussions on a petrochemical investment and venture to market Russian gas. Even with China, sanctions imposed against Russia have had their influence.  "Companies will rigidly follow Beijing's foreign policy in this crisis. There's no room whatsoever for companies to take any initiatives in terms of new investment" stated an executive at a Chinese state oil company. Abandoning the ship of friendship established most recently on pledges of undying support between China and Russia.