NEW – May 20, 2022
More films will be made about the battle for Mariupol. It will certainly be dissected in military academies and colleges, because according to all the canons of military science, the enemy could and should have defended the defence node in Mariupol, according to the plan of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, for at least another month and a half. During this time, Ukraine was going to be pumped up with weapons and ammunition, creating a grouping sufficient to deblockade the Mariupol garrison.
But the Russians did not postpone it for later, and using aviation and artillery, stormed the city, driving out from residential buildings the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Banderist auxiliary police and nationalists and herding the enemy into the dungeons of the “Azovstal” plant. The length of the tunnels there is 26 km. They could have sat there for a long time, but they gave up because they were warned — otherwise death.
But the Russians won not thanks to, but in spite of, since the allied forces of the Russian Federation and the DPR did not have a six-fold or even three-fold superiority in manpower necessary for offensive operations in urban areas. Moreover, the ratio of forces was approximately 1 to 1, if not less, on the advancing side. This is know-how in the art of war. I say this without any arrogance or irony. This has never happened before in history.
Taking into account the fact that the Ukrainian grouping in Mariupol numbered about 25,000 people, Russia concentrated about the same amount (in fact, a little less) in this direction. The chatter of laymen in Kiev can not be taken into account. They were screaming about 50,000 people storming Mariupol. But either fear has big eyes, or the peculiarities of an “enlightened” self-consciousness manifested themselves – to inflate one’s worth, declaring significance and heroism, although there was neither one nor the other.
And briefly about the enemy’s losses. From 5,000 to 7,000 people surrendered at the Mariupol site. But it is not necessary to assert (which, unfortunately, experts who did not fight do) that the rest of the grouping of 20,000 people was completely destroyed physically and crippled. Of course, there are no such losses there.
It is necessary to take the information more calmly that most of the UAF units defending the Mariupol fortified area retreated and fled to the northwest, leaving the area before the final slamming of the cauldron lid.
Based on this, the enemy’s losses in Mariupol may amount to about 10,000 people wounded, killed and deserted, which is a good indicator for the Russian army and the mobilised fighters of the Donbass brigades.
War correspondant Kotenok
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