That sounds about right. Seems like the Ukrainians put their biggest defensive effort into Mariupol, and rightly so given that the land bridge is the biggest objective of the Russians. Seems like the Donbass area is going Russia’s way so far, with that massive weapons cache they found just sitting there. Hoping this ends soon.
“Seems like the Donbass area is going Russia’s way so far, with that massive weapons cache they found just sitting there….”
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I thought that was in Kharkiv. Although there may be multiple ammunition depots they are overrunning recently.
I don’t think the land bridge was the consideration.
Simply Mariupol already had a rebellion in 2014 and was under DNR control for about a month — this is when Azov and Ukrainian army came in and successfully put down the rebellion.
And they kept disproportional amount of troops there ever since in the expectation of another rebellion or a Donetsk attempt to restore control.
And incidentally this is also the reason why Ukrainian army considered Mariupol population as hostile and showed no concerns about murder and destruction there.
As for the land bridge... yeah, everyone was talking about such a possibility... but only today - for the first time - it was mentioned as an objective by a Russian official.