The pictures from Mariupol are disturbing: the population has been living without water and electricity for days. Putin’s troops have cut off supplies, and the city (446,000 inhabitants) on the Azov Sea is surrounded. Evacuations fail, bombs fall on civilian buildings every day. According to the city administration, more than 2,500 residents have now been killed.
But: Mariupol is not giving up! Counterattacks can apparently be seen on drone footage of the Ukrainian army. At least three Russian armored vehicles and a command center hiding in the outskirts between buildings and trees were destroyed.
This also means that Ukraine is continuing to fight against the blockade, is trying to drive the Putin troops out of the city, and is trying to loosen the noose that is around the city. So far, Putin has almost completely failed in taking the Black Sea metropolis. Putin’s henchmen from the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” and the Russian army have so far not been able to break the will of the defenders, only to advance into the eastern outskirts.
Ukraine’s declaration of war: President Volodymyr Zelensky’s (44) adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, recently assured that there were enough Ukrainian troops in Mariupol to hold the encircled port city.
The problem: Additional troops are currently not coming to the city due to the Putin offensive in other regions. Still, Ukraine is continuing to try to get supplies (medicine and food) to Mariupol.
And morale on the Russian side is crumbling. Because: Putin’s advance is faltering, hardly a city could be conquered – the big cities remain what they are: Ukrainian. Soldiers desert, war equipment is destroyed. In addition, the Russian economy is crashing, and people are also demonstrating in their own country.
An important confidant of the Kremlin despot has now had to admit this: The head of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Solotov (68), admits that the military operation in Ukraine is progressing more slowly than planned – it is the loudest admission to date that Putin’s plan has failed A who wanted to conquer Ukraine in a few days.
“I would like to say, yes, not everything is going as fast as we would like,” Zolotov said in comments on the National Guard website. The force reports directly to the Kremlin tyrant and has soldiers in Ukraine.
Another sign of this: Putin is now having civilian buildings bombed en masse across the country, reducing entire streets and cities to rubble and ashes, rockets are also hitting door handles.
The deputy mayor of Mariupol told ARD last week: “The city doesn’t actually exist anymore.” He doesn’t know “how to describe the destruction in our city. (…) The pictures of Grozny and Aleppo – this is what Mariupol looks like at the moment.”