“The success of the Russian offensive in the south depends on the fate of Mariupol.” That was the almost sentencing statement released at the end of this week by the Ukrainian regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko at a time when the city it is almost entirely under Russian control and is hanging by a thread. What happens to this southern port town is key to the future of the war in Ukraine.
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Mariupol is considered a strategic enclave, both for Ukrainians in defense of the country and for Russian plans and eventual paths that the military campaign in Eastern Europe may take.
Kyrylenko said that the Moscow Army “concentrates all its efforts in Mariupol”, at a time when there are only a handful of resistance fighters left, entrenched in the Azovstal steel factory. It is said that around 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers and a thousand civilians are stationed in the facilities of this steelworks, one of the largest in Europe, and whose tunnels in which they hide are the obstacle to a final assault.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in fact, suspended the entry of his troops to Azovstal to avoid a bloodbath in his ranks. The Kremlin ordered the installations besieged and the entrances blocked “so that not even a fly gets through.” And despite the fact that President Volodimir Zelensky announced that his men will resist to the end and that Washington questions Russia’s claim of victory there, Moscow already takes the “liberation” of that port for granted.
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Precisely this Saturday, Russia resumed bombing against the steel mill, while in Odessa, southern Ukraine, at least five people were killed and 18 wounded in Russian bombing against, according to Russia, an arsenal. At the same time, an attempt to evacuate 200 civilians from Mariupol was “prevented” by Russian troops, a deputy mayor said.
resistance symbol
With almost half a million inhabitants, the main port on the Sea of Azov became in 2014 a symbol of resistance to the pro-Russian advance, an irreducible character that has been demonstrated again in the last two months. Only the constant and indiscriminate hammering of Russian artillery and aviation, which has destroyed almost the entirety of its urban landscape, has brought the city to its knees.
Eight years ago, the Azov Battalion, the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group most hated by the Russian propaganda machine, was formed there. “Denazification”, one of the arguments used by Putin to invade, It aimed, among others, at the members of that group. That would explain the ruthlessness of the Russian Army with this port, whose control will allow Russian troops to focus on gaining control of the Donetsk region.
(Also: Mariupol, about to fall into Russian hands).
Given the lack of progress on the ground, Moscow sent in the feared Chechen units led by the leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzán Kadírov, a declared enemy of the Azov.
Beyond Moscow’s propaganda rhetoric, the port is a key target for the laying of a corridor between Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea annexed by Moscow in 2014, as one of the top Russian military officials recognized for the first time yesterday. With the fall of the city, the Russians have a clear path to make their strategic plan a reality, with absolute control of the south.
With that plan in mind, three days before the invasion, Putin recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. Crimea’s chronic supply problems, mainly water, make it essential for Moscow to take control of that strip in the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
At the moment, Russian forces control practically the entire coast, including the port of Berdyansk and the inland city of Kherson, where Moscow is trying to introduce the ruble as currency for paying pensions.
As of now, Ukraine has lost access to the Sea of Azov, which Russia wants to turn into an inland sea since it annexed Crimea. The excuse is to guarantee the security of the peninsula and, in particular, of the bridge that it built across the Kerch Strait to break the isolation of the territory. This situation threatens to block trade in goods from Ukraine, which would have to reach Odessa on the Black Sea.
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The strategy can go beyond
Russia’s strategy may go beyond southern Ukraine. As a top Russian military commander admitted for the first time on Friday, Putin not only wants to create a corridor from Donbas and Crimea but also plans to link it with the breakaway region of Transnistria in Modalvia. The pro-Western Moldovan government immediately summoned the Russian ambassador and expressed “deep concern” to him. for those statements.
“Since the start of the second phase of the special operation, one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over Donbas and southern Ukraine,” said Acting Commander of the Russian Central Military District, Major General Rustam. Minnekeyev. Control over eastern and southern Ukraine “will make it possible to establish a land corridor to Crimea and gain influence over vital facilities of the Ukrainian economy and the Black Sea ports through which agricultural and metallurgical products are shipped to other countries,” according to the Russian major general.
But what’s more, Minnekéyev affirmed, according to the official agency Tass, “control over the south of Ukraine is also a way of accessing Transnistria, where acts of discrimination against Russian-speaking residents are also confirmed.”
They (the Russians) are not going to stop. The command of the Russian central military district announced the next victim of Russian aggression
Transnistria, a territory of half a million inhabitants, mostly Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians), broke ties with Moldova after an armed conflict in 1992-1993 in which it had Russian help. Under an agreement for the peaceful settlement of the conflict, Russia has deployed more than 2,000 troops to ensure peace. On March 5, the separatist territory asked for its independence to be recognized. “They (the Russians) are not going to stop. The command of the Russian Central Military District announced the next victim of Russian aggression,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry denounced.
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“After taking control of southern Ukraine, Russia plans to invade Moldova, where they say Russian-speakers are being oppressed,” he stressed. So far, the Kremlin has neither confirmed nor denied the Major General’s words. The Government of Ukraine immediately denounced Russian “imperialism” and stressed that Russia has revealed its true intentions in its military offensive, which is not, as initially announced, the “denazification” of the neighboring country.
“They stopped hiding it. The Russian command recognized that the goal of the ‘second phase’ of the war is not a victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry noted.
*With information from Efe and AFP
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