Putin orders troops not to storm final Mariupol holdout
By: Tyler ONeil (Fox News)
At least there is still some sanity remaining. Clearing the Azovstal steel plant would be nothing but senseless slaughter to achieve an unimportant objective. As long as Russian forces can control the Ukrainian separatists then the killing may come to an end in Mariupol.
No doubt Volodymyr Zelenski will use the hold outs for a propaganda message. But it's not worth slaughtering those who can do nothing just to counter propaganda.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops not to storm the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the besieged strategic city of Mariupol Thursday, even as he praised Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for the "liberation" of the city.
"I believe the suggested attack at the industrial zone to be not necessary," Putin told Shoigu in a televised meeting at the Kremlin. "I order for it to be called off."
"This is that case when we have to think- that is we always have to think but in this case it`s even more important - to think of saving lives and health of our soldiers and officers," Putin added. "One does not have to climb into these catacombs and crawl there underground around these industrial objects."
"Block this industrial zone in such a way that even a fly could not fly through," the president ordered. Shoigu replied, "Yes."
"Offer to all those who still did not lay down arms to do it," Putin added. "The Russian side guarantees life and dignified treatment to them in accordance with corresponding international legal acts. All of the wounded ones will receive qualified medical assistance."
"Completion of military actions on liberation of Mariupol is a success," he added. "Congratulations."
Previously, Soigu had told Putin, "As of today the whole Mariupol is under the control of Russian army, People`s militia of Donetsk People`s Republic and the territory of the plant 'Azovstal' with the remainder of nationalists and foreign mercenaries has been reliably blocked."
Early Wednesday, the commander of a Ukrainian Marine unit made an urgent last-ditch plea for Ukrainian women and children, along with wounded marines, sheltering in the Azovstal plant to be evacuated to a neutral third country as the Russian deadline to surrender Mariupol loomed.
Moscow has given the Ukrainian forces several deadlines to surrender the plant and leave without their weapons. The latest expired at 2 p.m. Moscow time (11 a.m. GMT) on April 20.
The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works was once the site of one of the largest metallurgical factories in Europe, but since the onslaught of the war more than 50 days ago it has become a symbol of the city's resistance.
A few thousand Ukrainian troops, by Russia's estimate, remained holed up at a mammoth steel mill in Mariupol, the last known pocket of resistance in the devastated southern port city. (AP)
The plant's network of underground tunnels has become home to Mariupol residents seeking shelter from the barrage of shelling and a base for several military units.
Despite weeks of intense shelling that has resulted in the death of more than 20,000 Mariupol residents according to Mayor Vadym Boychenko, Russian forces have been unable to take the strategically important city.
An advisor to the Russian-backed separatist forces in the Donetsk region said the Azovstal tunnels were a leading contributor to Russia's failed attempts to completely besiege the city, claiming that they could withstand "even [a] nuclear strike."
Russia launched a full-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine this week, after pivoting from broad-based attacks across the country, including a massive assault on the capital of Kyiv.
Only four buses with civilians managed to escape Mariupol on Wednesday after several unsuccessful events, Ukrainian officials said Thursday. Late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine had liberated nearly 1,000 settlements Russian forces previously controlled earlier in the invasion.
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Now is the time for empathy and humanitarian efforts in Mariupol. Believe it or not, Vladimir Putin has made the offer.
After he has destroyed Mariupol?
What a humanitarian/s
Is this a true offer or preparation to proclaim victory ahead of the 2020 Victory Day Parade?
Putin is going to declare victory regardless. The Kyiv government hasn't made any advances in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. Luhansk and Donetsk are more secure now than before the invasion.
Putin framed the invasion around the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. According to Putin's justifications, securing the independence of the LPR and DPR is victory. The way Putin framed the reasons for the invasion, victory was guaranteed.
For the Kyiv government to be victorious it will be necessary to defeat Russia, the LPR, and the DPR.
Sure. He wants to limit additional Russian causalities so he's going to starve/bombard the holdouts with artillery.
There's really nothing humanitarian about it.
The munitions can be used elsewhere; there's no need to waste munitions on the Azovstal steel plant. The Marines used flame throwers to clear the tunnels on Okinawa. It's a tedious, messy, and demoralizing task but relatively safe for the attacking force.
Killing the holdouts in the tunnels under the Azovstal steel plant wouldn't achieve anything important. At this point the hold outs are a nuisance and not a threat. The hold outs don't have anywhere to go and there doesn't appear to be any way to resupply them. Russian forces will have to occupy Mariupol anyway so it's not like watching the Azovstal steel plant will add anything difficult to that occupation.
He has tens of thousands of troops there. They came across the first Ukrainian position and the found out it had 50 men on it. He just wants to wait for more Russian troops to get there to make it a fair fight.
Yea but - the Azovs are at the bottom of Putin's friends list. It's a thrifty tactic to let them trickle out three by three but they're going to disappear quietly, and Putin enjoys the humanitarian headline.
This is why it;s hard take you seriously anymore.
It doesn't matter what Putin says.......
that's all propaganda for the Russian media to feed to the Russians with no internet.
and fans of Tucker Carlson...
Meanwhile, on the ground in Mariupol, row after row of T-72's fire round after round
at Mariupol and the steel mill hour after hour...
That is 100 pct, gold plated, correct.
The Putin government is feeding the Russian people propaganda. The Zelensky government is feeding the Ukrainian people propaganda. The Biden government is feeding the American people propaganda.
That's why it is necessary for people to think for themselves.
I don't know if the news footage we are being shown was shot yesterday, two weeks ago, or two months ago. The news media uses footage that fits the message. And I have noticed old footage being shown because it fits the current message from the Biden government, the Zelensky government, or the Putin government.
The news is being filtered through a number of propaganda messages. Just because the media is showing pictures and video doesn't mean the reporting is true. All sides are twisting the truth.
and all of the American and BBC journalists on the ground are complicit?
smh
What they see and what they report might not be published without the tricks of the publishing trade, such as bias for example. I learned when I was Editor-in-Chief of my university newspaper many tricks of the trade such as misleading headlines, hiding the truth 4 or 5 paragraphs down with the leading paragraphs skewed to the bias of that particular publication. As for BBC, I was aware of its biases many decades ago. And I am also well aware of the biases of the news publications in China - it's about time Americans realized that the news they read isn't exacly word for word from Walter Cronkite.
Not complicit. Complacent.
" ... the Ukrainian separatists ..."
... and they are?
The Ukrainian separatists are Ukrainians in the Donbas region who opposed the parliamentary coup that removed the elected President of Ukraine in 2014.
Stating this and just wondering out loud , how this differs from the US impeachment process we have seen play out over the past few years here ourselves .
the statement say parliamentary specifically so that says the government reps themselves voted on the actions hopefully following their own laws and constitutions and governing documents , much like happens in our own process. or was our governments actions during impeachment also a "coup", by opposition parties ?
OR should those that opposed impeachment ,after they lost be able to just "seperate" and form their own governments ?
But it wasn't similar to an impeachment. The politics are convoluted and I don't understand all the nuances. European politics are convoluted enough and eastern European politics are often bizarre.
All of the started in 2008 (or earlier) with a dispute between Ukraine and Russia over the price of natural gas. Russia had been supplying natural gas to Ukraine at a steep discount and Russia decided to end the discount. Russia could get a better price selling the natural gas to Germany. Ukraine didn't want to pay market price and ran up a debt owed to Russia.
Apparently negotiations to resolve the dispute over the price of natural gas and debt owed to Russia involved changing the Ukrainian Constitution to either slow or prohibit Ukraine seeking membership in NATO and the European Union. Those are the security guarantees that Russia has been talking about.
Eastern Ukraine is the industrial part of Ukraine and Russia is a big customer. Eastern Ukraine had attracted Russian investment and Russian immigrants were working in eastern Ukraine. Western Ukraine wanted to give the finger to Russia, buy natural gas from Poland and Romania, and skip on the debt owed to Russia. The Ukrainian parliament set aside its own rules and pushed through changes to the Ukrainian Constitution that reinstated old provisions and added new provisions to definitely seek membership in NATO and the European Union. The elected President Yanukovych would not sign the legislation (which is a veto in Ukraine) so the parliament dismissed Yanukovych and installed an interim government with with Oleksandr Turchynov as acting President and chairman of the legislature. Turchynov was, in essence, named dictator.
That's when Russia annexed Crimea. And protests (similar to the BLM protests in the US) erupted in eastern Ukraine. Some protesters seized some government buildings and declared autonomy (a little like CHAZ in Seattle). Acting President Turchynov declared the protesters were Russian backed terrorists, instituted an anti-terrorism campaign, and deployed the Russian military to the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. The actions taken by Turchynov turned the protests into an ethnic war. The interim government installed by parliament, and not by election, began an anti-Russian campaign to subdue Luhansk and Donetsk by military force. That's very, very similar to how the Soviets subdued the Hungarian revolt in 1956. The interim government of Ukraine returned to Soviet methods of putting down revolts in the Donbas region in 2014.
There wasn't an impeachment. There wasn't an election. And there wasn't any democracy involved. An unelected government, installed by the parliament, sent tanks to Luhansk and Donetsk to end the protests. And that unelected government justified sending in the military by claiming that pro-Russian Ukrainians were not Ukrainians. And the Obama administration backed up the interim government from the beginning.
Fine oration, so thats what you understand of the issue ? well you are entitled to your opinion .
now i will explain my understanding of the issue .
the donboss region has been fought over by different groups and nationalities for a couple centuries actually. so what exactly is the so called "beef" today ? well if one believes russia , which i dont and never will, its to protect people that are russian in heritage and language , that at points in history were part of a former russian empire , be it imperial or soviet . That would cover the last 100 years or so .
But what makes the Donboss area so important to either side ? is it because of who lives there , or the claim to territory for some political slight or belief ?
I think it is a little more simple than that .
the Donboss area is home to , massive coal and gas and oil reserves , that have hardly been developed up to date . the nazis in WW2 wanted the area for just that reason , the natural resources the area provided . the soviets kept the gas an oil as a reserve for their military to be used when needed . the coal kept the area somewhat alive economically throughout it all.
The importance of the Donboss area lies in the natural resources and who controls and benefits from them , currently and recognized by the world at large and by majority the area is Ukrainian , not russian .
The russian wish to control it because of those resources t
that if developed by the ukraines or say a Nato partnership , those resources will take a very large bite out of the russian economy by supplying to europe what russia somewhat has a lock on but is finding out its not as strong a lock as they thought , russia is attempting to eliminate a future competitor, in the energy sector if they ever get those gas fields developed .
the only thing i really see political here is that russias economy is threatened by competition that currently has no great love lost for them and might just do some things for spite over past russian actions over the last century .
Now depending on which news reports you believe , if the russians were doing here what they are accused of doing in ukraine , every mothers son wearing a uniform might as well paint a target on their face , because i doubt such russian military tactics would be looked at kindly here. and a supporter or collaborator of theirs should not expect much better treatment I would think .
So i prefer, to cut the horse shit , and get to the rat killing preferably russian rat( of any stripe) killing , the entire conflict is about power and control of the regions natural resources and who will ultimately profit from it , if its the ukraines , they raise their standard of living , and the russian populus , if reports are to believed get to watch their economy go down the shitter because they won be the so called only merchant on the block , im sure europe woud much rather do business with ukrainians than russians anyway . if the russians control all that they pretty much get to set themselves up as the eurasian equivilant of OPEC and can dictate politics under threat of resource embargos .
And that is the long of the short of it .
Ukraine imports 80 pct of the natural gas it uses. Ukraine is industrialized and has the capability to develop any coal, oil, or natural gas reserves in eastern Ukraine. If there were that many resources available in Donbas then it would be to Ukraine's advantage to develop those resources rather than be dependent upon imports.
Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world. Russia already exports coal, oil, and natural gas. Ukraine was dependent upon Russia for natural gas before buying natural gas from Poland and Romania. Russia doesn't need any resources from Ukraine and the Ukrainian reserves are not large enough to compete with Russia.
The only thing in Ukraine of interest to Russia is access to the Black Sea. This isn't the first time over the last 250 years that Russia has bankrupted itself to defend it's claim to Crimea.
Power and control of natural resources may be important to western Europe but isn't Russia's motivation. The LPR and DPR in eastern Ukraine won't accept a Russian occupation either.
Russia had attracted investments from Europe and the United States. Russia has opened its economy somewhat and was becoming a trading partner with Europe. The standard of living in the Russian Federation has improved considerably over the last 30 years.
Russia doesn't need Ukraine. It's the United States that needs Ukraine to threaten and contain Russia as a continuation of policy begun in 1946. Without a Russian threat there isn't a need for NATO. And without NATO the United States has no influence in Europe.
If Ukraine had that much coal, oil, and natural gas then the Ukrainian economy wouldn't depend so heavily on manufacturing weapons that are sold to terrorists. Ukrainian weapons have been used to kill US soldiers in the Middle East, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Ukrainian weapons, manufactured in Ukraine, were used to sink the Moskva. Those same weapons have been sold to countries the United States have been fighting. And the United States has been providing economic aid that is used to support Ukraine's defense industries. We've been paying Ukraine to build weapons used to kill our own soldiers.
well the US has a oil and gas reserve that is said to be twice the size of that in saud or the middle east , yet it is left pretty much untapped , its called the green river formation .
US policy for some time now has been to leave our fields untapped , buy others fuel products until they are depleted and once the cost becomes too high plan on tapping our own and eventually sell to others at the price we set . they are after all a finite resource and will eventually run out , i mean only so many dinos and plants are buried and converted to the substances .
Who is to say that ukraine wasnt doing the same thing? being supplied by russia, just waiting for the russian fields to be depleted before they decided it was more cost effective to tap their own ?
@ both Nerm_L and Mark in Wyoming
And the beat goes on, and the beat goes on...
Everyone has their story and their history and their beliefs. There are two stories on the table and never the twain shall meet. Compromise does not exist as a possiblilty but nuclear winter for the planet Earth DOES. What is going to be the final result of this war? Will it be eventual surrender to the Russians, or will it be the defeat of the Russian invaders using the military assistance of the USA and NATO, or will it be a total victory on the part of Russia with the last man standing being Zelenskyy? Who knows? If the Ukrainians are victorious and chase Russia away, or if Russia takes the cake and in each case Ukraine is left with thousands dead, buildings and infrastructure demolished, millions displaced - what a great accumplishment that will be. If it escalates to bigger and more effective deterrents then perhaps nuclear winter for all of us will be the result. And obviously there are those who are doing the escalating - I need not point out whom. Could all of that death and destruction and displacement which will be the final result have been avoided if common sense results could have been achieved through negotiations instead of with bombs and bullets? Let us pay no attention to the cost of this war to the rest of the world, the inflation caused by it, the shortages of world necessities such as wheat and fertilizers, shortage of fuels in Europe, who is not going to be hurt? What is it in the personality of MAN that ALWAYS has to lead to this?
I have been posting links over the last two months. It's been an exercise in futility. I can back up everything I've claimed but it would take time to gather all the links together again. And I'll only be called a Putin stooge.
Nobody is interested in facts because they are inconvenient.
The final result will be Russia remaining in Crimea, Russia continuing to control the Black Sea, and Ukraine will be partitioned. For the Kyiv government to be victorious it will be necessary to defeat Russia, the DPR, and LPR. The Kyiv government has not controlled the border between the eastern Oblasts and Russia for eight years.
Victory for Russia will be securing the independence of the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. Vladimir Putin framed the justification for invading Ukraine upon the security and independence of the LPR and DPR. Putin set a measure of victory that is almost guaranteed. But the LPR and DPR won't accept a Russian occupation, either. Russia won't be able to annex eastern Ukraine.
The result will be that the world has two newly independent countries. Zelensky won't accept that. It appears the United States won't accept that. Europe will likely waffle. And most of the world won't really care.
The main objective for Russia is to protect its claim on Crimea and control of the Black Sea. The Black Sea is part of Russia's strategic nuclear deterrence.
Enforcing the Minsk agreements negotiated in 2014 likely would have avoided the war. Russia really did sit at the negotiating table and agreed to terms that would resolve the disagreements and conflicts. The Minsk agreement provided guarantees that Ukrainian borders wouldn't change, the Donbas would obtain autonomy through decentralized government, and Russia would obtain security guarantees that had been made before the elected President was removed and replaced by a parliamentary coup.
But the Obama administration chose the back the unelected interim government and gave up being a mediator. France and Germany tried to act as mediators but neither have any influence over the United States. And the United States adopted a belligerent position in 2014 because Obama sold the Euromaidan protests as something akin to the 'Arab spring' uprising that Obama botched up in Syria.
This war was avoidable. The issues had already been resolved but there wasn't any independent peacekeeping enforcement. The Ukrainian interim government began breaking the agreement at the end of 2014. Negotiated ceasefires in Donbas rarely lasted more than a few minutes. The Ukrainian interim government sent tanks into the Donbas to subdue the LPR and DPR protests. The Ukrainian military was shelling villages. schools, and hospitals. The Ukrainian interim government turned the LPR and DPR protests into an ethnic war; with the backing of the United States. Everything we're seeing today has been happening in the Donbas region over the last eight years. But the people on the receiving end were pro-Russian and backed by Russia so nobody in Europe or the United States gave a shit.
I said that at the very beginning and my face was slapped and I've lost friends here because of it. I said the problem was that everyone who got involved had to show what big balls they had. That was the language I used - those were my very words. How does it feel to have the Doomsday Clock closer than ever to midnight?. What followed was thousands of deaths of and maimed innocent people, dystopian destruction that will take years and trillions of dollars to rebuild and multi-millions displaced. That is how this will all end up now. And who are the only winners? The American armaments manufacturers, and I'd like to know who anyone thinks will be winners other than them.
So the worry is possible escalation? i think thats putins aim all along , a showdown with the west to see who blinks .
you have to answer for yourself who is actually shaking the keys to their nuclear arsenals in others faces . it isnt NATO countries or the USA.. Thing is will the one shaking those keys actually use them ? or will HE be the one to blink?
I think the bigger danger of a nuke winter is based to the east of China itself really , there is aloose cannon there , because last i knew , even with threats to Taiwan , nobody has even thought of bringing that to the table, oh some pundits have mentioned it , but none of the players have , and there are a number of countries that have nukes in that area not just the US and china , the AU have them , india , paki , hell its like everyone there has them , but are smart enough to not bring them up . NK is the only wildcard i think is stupid enough to use them. and as far as expanding their footprint and influence , let them have at it , the recent solomon agreement will likely last up until the next political election since over 70% of the electorate there were AGAINST the agreement and aligning with China . So i would count that as a short term political victory for China that the agreement was even reached there.
Could all thats happening in Ukraine been avoided ? of course , it just depends on how much bending over was expected from the participants . appeasement diplomacy went the way of Neville Chamberlin after he allowed Hitler and the ilk of the axis to do the things that lead to the second world war to continue , i dont think that mistake will be made again anytime soon..
Oh and you asked who other than US arms suppliers have or will make a profit off the deal in ukraine? seems the chinese arms industry made a recent drop off to a former soviet country of air defense missles, im sure they didnt donate those .
Do you think Belarus would continue ties with the Russian Federation if Russia used nuclear weapons on its borders? Look at where Kyiv is located. Look at where Chernobyl is located. Part of the Chernobyl exclusion zone is located in Belarus.
The United States is the only nation on the planet that has used atomic bombs as weapons of war. And the United States used its early monopoly with atomic bombs to shape global policy. The United States relied on nuclear threats to impose ideological policy onto other countries between 1946 and 1949.
The United States policy of punitive sanctions was put in place in 1946. And those sanctions were to be enforced with threats of nuclear war. Joe Biden is following the playbook created in 1946 based on the United States monopoly with atomic bombs. The atom bomb completely changed the nature of international diplomacy and possessing nuclear weapons became a necessity to have a voice in international affairs.
Why do you think Ukraine has so many old nuclear reactors? Ukraine produced plutonium. Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power during the Cold War. Ukraine had the capability and knowledge to build plutonium fission bombs. It's unclear if today's Ukraine has retained that capability and knowledge but we shouldn't be surprised if Ukraine begins making nuclear threats, too.
well it would be surprising because back in 94 they were a signatory to the non prolification treaty to become a non nuclear weapons country , with certain security assurances of course which i just read even china recognizes and as the world watchdogs watched , got rid of all their nuke weapons from ukrainian territory .
now could they have pulled a dirty sanchez and started developing and building some after the 2014 annexation of crimea ? and the placement of russian nukes in crimea in 2015? crap shoot i guess , but an educated guess would be that the way weapons grade nuke material is accounted for , its not exactly likely because they would have been found out , AND lost the security provisions of the non nuke treaty they signed . so far the only one shaking the nuclear gate is Russia.
And that i think has peoples attention .
It's not uranium; it's plutonium produced by nuclear reactors. The reactors operating in Ukraine were designed for that purpose. Ukraine already knows how to build atomic bombs. And Ukraine's defense industries are a significant part of the country's economy so the means of maintaining secrecy are already in place. As you point out, Ukraine can't make nuclear threats without giving up security guarantees.
Russia maintained a nuclear stockpile in Crimea to supply the Black Seas fleet before the USSR collapsed. Russia didn't introduce nuclear weapons into Crimea in 2015; Russia already had a stockpile in Sevastopol. That's how Russia can position nuclear armed submarines in the Mediterranean without going the long way around. The Black Sea is strategically important for Russia's nuclear deterrence.
Which is how diplomatic relations among the nuclear powers has worked for 70 years. The United States has probably repositioned its aging fleet of boomers to threaten Russia, too.
No arguments there , strategically and tactically it would make sense , what with the NATO agreements in place and all, now if it entails all the elements of the nuke triad the US has at its disposal one can only take an educated guess.
My guess is not to bet against it being already done .
I can't answer that question. Interestingly, my fathrr was born in Belarus in the city of Cherikov, located almost on the Russian border. Belarus (Bella Rus) means what was known as White Russia, where his family owned a sugar refinery and were considered bourgeois. He went to a trade school and when it was discovered who he was he was bullied, threatened and attacked so he left Belarus and immigrated to Canada at the age of 13 alone with only pennies in his pocket. I'm sure I still have family there although I know nothing of them.
My mother was born in Kiev (as it was then known) and her family immigrated to Canada during the 1920s when she was a young girl. I'm sure I still have family in Ukraine although I know nothing about them (hopefully they're now in Poland or elsewhere).
My parents met and married where they were living in the city of Hamilton, Ontario (which is located at the far western point of Lake Ontario, only around 50 miles from the Niagara River i.e. the American border) where I was born and grew up but I moved to Toronto in my 20s.
Therefore I'm more connected to the players in this war than any of the ones who are taking sides and critical of me for not doing so.
Of that i have no doubt , but what happened after Ukraine independence is a question , just because a stockpile was there in the past , does not mean it remained .
If the russians had some sort of agreement with the ukes , the question would need to be answered as to the grade of the stockpile that would remain . a fuel grade nuke stockpile is not exactly a stockpile of weapons grade nuke material . There is a difference . and one can not exactly be exchanged for use for the other . To do so is in reality just creating what we call a "dirty bomb" not exactly as effective as one using material designed for a purpose .
and even IF the resupply weapons were agreed to be kept there , who knows if that also allowed the core nuke material was ? it may have had to be shipped in from a storage somewhere else .
Since the annexation of Crimea , the likelihood that weapons grade material was moved in is almost assured and would not surprise me . But it would have been done after annexation and Russian control established .
The nuances of signing the treaty for the ukrainians to become a non nuke weapon nation , would have to be looked at , they did agree to dismantle and destroy what weapons they had control of , now other agreements on what would be allowed to other countries would likely be affected by the treaty as well, so it is not far fetched to consider a weapons system of another country might be able to be kept there when Ukrainians controlled the area with the core nuke components kept somewhere else , without that core components they would be considered conventional weapons . A pain in the ass logistically, but its been done before.
An example would be US cruise missiles , in one configuration , they are considered conventional weapons . a simple change of warhead and they become nukes , and the change doesnt take a great deal of time like say on an ICBM, and can be done in the field , while being moved .
as they say , the devil is most definitely in the details . but we of course are just speculating as to future outcomes .
Yes, Ukraine did sign the non-proliferation treaty. But Russia has not allowed the Ukrainian government to inspect the Black Sea fleet or Russian military installations in Crimea. That means the dispute is over inspections rather than a dispute over violations of the the non-proliferation treaty.
Both Ukraine and Russia had a vested interest in avoiding inspections. If Russia keeping nukes in Crimea caused Ukraine to violate the non-proliferation agreements then it would become imperative for Russia to annex Crimea. The non-proliferation treaty does allow Russia to maintain nuclear weapons on Russian territory so it would have been necessary for Russia to annex Crimea to comply with the non-proliferation treaty. Ukrainian independence did not sever ties between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine and Russia adopted a don't-ask-don't tell policy following Ukrainian independence.
Also just read some Russian general stated that Moldova is next since they also have a seperatist issue on the Ukraine border that they are supporting , im starting to see a pattern emerge .
I think the only reason putin didn't destroy the steel mill is because he wants it.
How badly damaged is it? Given all of the shelling trying to get at the troops within, can it even be salvaged?
The WWI tactics that Russia loves so much will not work here. They are better off surrounding it; putting snipers in place; and shooting whomever is desperate enough to pop their head out.
From the looks of it Ukraine can't get supplies in; and their troops/people can't get out. They refuse to surrender; so expect the area rat population to decrease significantly as the siege goes on and whatever supplies they have run out.
This is the first smart tactical Russia has made in this war. Which isn't saying much.
I dont think anyone can say right now , but im willing to bet that the risk of further damage or sabotage helped dictate the choice to just use siege methods .
they wont use chemicals because that has already been deemed a red line for NATO, even a tactical nuke ( low yield and small ) is out of the question really and is another NATO red line .
Someone suggested flamethrowers but that would weaken and undermine a lot of the needed infrastructure , not to mention even the US stopped having them in their inventory in the late70s even though there is no protocols against their use in war per say , yes there are some rules but not much . i think their introduction would likely be viewed as very detrimental to those that used them . so cant gas them out , cant blast them out , and cant burn them out , all thats left is wait them out . Thats about the only option left without risking damage that makes the site unusable .
Even if it is still can be salvaged now; I don't expect the Ukrainians to leave it that way. At least I wouldn't if I were them. I would make sure the last of my munitions and explosives were used to destroy main areas. If nothing else make it structurally unsound/unsafe.
Not sure chemical weapons would even work. Unless there are enough air shafts throughout the plant and underground passages the gases would just collect in high concentrations in certain areas. Tactical nuke isn't viable if they expect to keep this city once the war is over.
I don't think the Russians fight to the same standards as the US does. So flame throwers could still be an option; but I do not know the layout of the plant or the underground passages. If there a lot of long straight corridors; and large open areas with levels above them- I wouldn't want to be the one using a flame thrower then. Also the Ukrainians have to know the place better than the Russians. With the way the Russian military fought it would cost them a lot more men to try and take the facility.
Again, this is the first tactically smart thing the Russians have done this war; and that isn't saying much. If it weren't for their nuclear weapons the US/NATO would be rolling towards Moscow. (OK, it would 99% the US; but NATO would be along for the ride).
Putin needs to worry about Russia's long term future. Even if they hold the ground they have gained in Ukraine; and get a favorable peace settlement; the damage that has been done to Russia reputation will be irreparable. Who will want Russian weapons? Russia was number 2 in arms sales behind the US; but this display by the Russian military has to have their customers thinking they have made a massive mistake. Russia is already losing ground to the US; I would look for that to continue.
well it would be kind of handy in replacing that warship with materials to build , i mean look at all the scrap metal thats close by that could be melted down and be made into new steel.....
The Donetsk People's Republic may not allow Russia to annex Mariupol. The DPR claimed Mariupol as part of its territory in 2014. Azov neo-Nazi paramilitary (civilian fighters) fought the separatists and captured Mariupol. That's why the neo-Nazis are heroes in western Ukraine.
It is unlikely the Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine will accept annexation by the Russian Federation. That's why Putin recognizing the independence of the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic was a big deal. Putin partitioned Ukraine before the invasion. And the Kyiv government's belligerent opposition to independence of the DPR and LPR was part of Putin's justification for invading Ukraine.
Putin wins by enforcing the partition and securing the independence of the DPR and LPR. The Kyiv government wins by defeating Russia, the DPR, and the LPR. The separatists in the DPR and LPR held back the Ukrainian military for eight years so it appears more unlikely now that the Kyiv government can defeat them.