Russia can’t even rake over this place on their own? They need a surrender?
It’s right there by the Russian regions, at the sea.
Russia could blow Ukraine to smithereens, destroy everything and kill millions. When you try to avoid leveling the place, that creates the opportunity for the underdog to use tactics that an army on the march neither knows or understands.
Yep. Mariupol is only 40 miles from the Russian border and KGB Putin is still begging for them to surrender after a month.
The Russians have taken an awful lot of heat from an interventionist press here in the West; I wouldn't look at this as anything more than a gesture of mercy.
Had they simply gone in without a pause, the interventionists would have doubled down and called it evidence of Putin's ruthlessness.
Russia has been trying to avoid as much civilian casualties as possible. Everything guys I know there have said have confirmed this.