Posted on 04/23/2022 2:00:57 PM PDT by tlozo
Russian forces on Saturday resumed attacks on a steel plant sheltering an estimated 1,000 citizens and the last remaining Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said.
The move marks an apparent departure from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order earlier in the week not to attack the Ukrainian holdout in the strategic port city, but to instead block off the facility from supplies to force the Ukrainians to surrender.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a briefing that Russian forces had targeted the Azovstal steel plant in air strikes and were attempting to storm it.
On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Mr. Putin that Russian forces had “liberated” Mariupol except for the steel plant.
Ukrainian officials say approximately 2,000 troops remain in the sprawling facility along with the civilians, and Mr. Arestovich said the troops were attempting to counter Russia’s attacks...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Pretty light on details. I guess we’ll see what occurs.
Russia cannot succeed without total control of every inch of Mariupol.
No sleep till Odessa.
They have 2-3 weeks of ammo and food left, according to one report.
Does Russia have bunker busters?
I wonder how deep, fortified, and extensive the tunnels there are...
This war needs to stop!
“Pretty light on details. I guess we’ll see what occurs.”
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I take everything that comes out of there (from both sides) with a shaker full of salt. I suspect that if the Russians actually have entered the grounds of the steel plant it’s MERELY TO GET CONTROL OF THE SURFACE OF THOSE GROUNDS to cover the entrances/exits for the tunnels. They have no NEED to actually go into the (now) very smelly tunnels.
Entering the tunnels sounds unnecessary and a good way to die.
I read six levels, separated by one meter of concrete.
If the Ukrainians built bunkers six levels deep, I would suspect they have tunnels extending far outside the steelworks.
The Russians, to a near certainty, have the detailed plans for all the underground structures.
Why do you guys seem to have belief in Russian infallibility after all their manifest failures?
They are paid to “believe” in Russia and Putin.
Perfect location for Putin’s chemical warfare.
Where have I ever said Russia is infallible?
Modus tollens.
I see many claims that the Russians have X or can do Y, which would imply they ought to have won already or be doing far better than they have. That's what I meant by "infallibility." You all seem to think the Russians are far more capable than any evidence seems to indicate.
Yes, the Russians need to go home!
I am sure that the Soviets had plans for the tunnels. Unfortunately for the Russians, most likely they were probably kept in a local office in Mariupol which, like the old Soviet nukes in Ukraine, would have fallen to the Ukrainians upon their independence.
That’s possible. But those underground facilities (established with the idea of surviving nuclear war) at the steel plant were designed and constructed (as best as I know from limited reading) during the times when the Soviet Union was a CENTRALIZED top down command economy. My suspicion is that somewhere in the former Soviet Union’s successor states (most likely Russia) there was centralized information on ALL of the Soviet Union’s major underground nuclear shelters. Of course, that’s only my conjecture. And it’s always possible that upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union entropy set in and such important information degraded or was discarded.
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