Ukraine update: Russia did the smart thing in Mariupol, and it might still cost them

This post was originally published on this site

As I’ve been suggesting, it made no sense for Russia to expend more cannon fodder on rooting out Ukrainian defenders from the city-sized labyrinth that is the Azovastal steel plant. So Russia will put up a cordon around the place, and send the rest of their Mariupol forces north to join the fight for Donbas. 

Except … have you seen the factory? 

The factory is over 4 square miles large. I measured the outside border of the facility and it was over 9 miles, half of it over water. Russia’s lack of night-vision goggles will only compound the difficulty of containing the Ukrainians at the plant. Indeed, its defenders ventured out of the complex a couple of days ago to rescue 500 Ukrainian border guards surrounded and low on ammo in a different part of the city. It will be possible for Russia to keep these forces in Mariupol, but it’ll be impossible to prevent them from roaming the city. Whatever poor Russians or proxies are left behind will be sniped, ambushed, harassed, and attrited little by little. 

The big question is food: What exactly does Ukraine have stashed in the tunnels of the complex, now housing several thousand holdouts, including the families of fighters (and children)? And can Ukraine use the plant’s southern sea access to continue sneaking in more supplies (and perhaps evacuate the children)? 

If the defenders are well stocked (and it was always planned as Ukraine’s Alamo), then Russia’s inability to subdue it could be of great benefit. The plant was literally designed to withstand a nuclear bomb, and tunnels run the entirety of the facility, allowing defenders to move around at will without being detected or exposing themselves to the relentless artillery on the surface. Depending on who the Russians leave in the containment garrison, the defenders may even be able to venture out on supply runs, or take what they need (food and ammo) from the Russian garrison itself. Even now, in daytime, they’re running around causing trouble outside the factory grounds in this Russian video:

The rest of the front appears static on paper, with no territory changing hands, but troops on the ground were certainly busy. Ukraine’s General Staff claimed they repelled 10 different Russian attacks and inflicted significant casualties over the past two days: 

According to the information, on April 20 this year, another batch of wounded soldiers of the Russian Federation (about 220 people) and over 50 bodies of the killed firefighters were delivered to the central district hospital of Novoaydar city.

In addition, the battalion tactical group of the 136th individual [motorized] brigade of the 58th military army of the Southern Military District, which was operating in the Kurahivsky direction, suffered significant losses in live force (up to 250 people) …

In the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, ten attacks of Russian occupiers have been shot down in the past 24 hours, six tanks were destroyed, eight units of armored and fifteen units of automobile equipment, four artillery systems.

General staff also reported that some Russian units weren’t getting paid, further adding to morale woes. And while it’s always wise to doubt these casualty reports, they seem to generally match up with some of the videos we can see online (including some gruesome stuff I certainly won’t be sharing here). But here, take this single attack set to the Ukrainian national anthem: 

Check out where the town of Krasnohorivka is located: 

The town is literally outside the capital of the Donetsk breakaway region in Donbas. You know how pathetic it’s been that Russia can’t capture towns on its own border, like Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv? Well, this is more of the same. 

So here’s an underresourced column, seemingly much smaller than the battalion tactical group (BTG) that is supposed to be Russia’s maneuver unit—10 tanks and 40 infantry fighting vehicles. It ventures out of its separatist stronghold, and artillery absolutely demolishes it. Those vehicles can’t leave the road for fear of getting stuck in the mud, and Russia isn’t waiting for the mud to dry because … who knows why. Maybe it’s as simple as “Putin needs his victory by the May 9 parade.”

As a result of this ill-conceived effort, I count six dead tanks (which makes the general staff reports believable), and one infantry fighting vehicle. One of the tanks might even be salvageable—the turret still works, but the track is shot. Whatever BTG this unit was with just lost 60% of its heavy armor in  this dinky forward probe. Ukrainian infantry in Krasnohorivka didn’t have to sweat this one, the damage was done from afar. All the dead and wounded are on the Russian side. But had that probe gotten closer to town, it would’ve been met with a swarm of Javelins, NLAWS, or any of the other anti-tank missiles in Ukraine’s arsenal. This attack never had any chance of success!

So another day passes, and everyone is still waiting for Russia’s mythical “all-out offensive.” Yes, there are more attacks than a week ago: 10 daily assaults compared to four to six. But if there were something big coming down the pike, why continue to attrit troops and equipment in this manner? Yeah yeah, I am a broken record. But so are Russia’s tactics. 

Meanwhile, the United States is sending 90 more artillery howitzers, while other allies send dozens more. The U.S. isn’t done gifting these to Ukraine either. There’re more coming. Lots more. There’s no reason to stop. So before long, any Russian attempt to move will be met with a similar wall of artillery unless Russia figures out how to fly a competent air force to hunt these batteries down.

Russia did try to bust out that air force yesterday, and they got shot down a lot—here, here, and two more here. Ukraine lacks air defenses for high-flying strategic bombers and ballistic missiles, but they have no shortage of surface-to-air missiles to engage low-flying ground support aircraft. As a result, Russia is terrified of sending them too far out from friendly Donbas skies. That’s why Russia doesn’t try to take out the massive arms shipment arriving daily from the West: Russian aircraft go poof if they try to venture more than a few miles into Ukrainian airspace.

Yesterday, the Pentagon assessed that Ukraine had more tanks remaining in country than Russia and its allies. With more armor, artillery, and aircraft arriving daily from the West, the balance of power is slowly shifting even further toward Ukraine. And with Vladimir Putin’s refusal to order a general mobilization in Russia, Ukraine’s advantage will only grow.