There have been so many compelling images coming out of Mariupol the past few weeks, as the Azov battalion tried to stave off the inevitable. They knew they would never defeat the Russian army, which literally threw everything at them, including a barrage of phosphorus bombs that increased the heat inside the steelworks to as high as 800 degrees Celsius. The soldiers took cover in the vast honeycomb of tunnels underneath, but of course that meant they had no means to retaliate. They were at the mercy of the Russians. They held out for the simple reason that they wanted to buy time for the Ukrainian army to fortify its positions at other key points on the eastern front of the war. This bravery will no doubt immortalize the battalion, which eventually surrendered with the condition that there would be a prisoner swap between the two countries to bring them back home. Other attempts to facilitate these soldiers evacuation had failed.
In large part that is because the Kremlin regards the Azov battalion as war criminals. In fact, the Russian Supreme Court is currently deliberating whether to label the battalion a terrorist organization and therefor make them subject to prosecution. A big show trial would greatly help Putin's standing after having taken so long to secure Mariupol. So, it is unlikely these soldiers will ever be returned to Ukraine.
I think everyone knew this. Unfortunately, there was no viable way of bringing relief to the soldiers or providing an evacuation corridor. It took months just to negotiate the release of the civilians trapped in the steelworks with many being taken to filtration camps in Russian-controlled Luhansk where they face deportation. It is estimated that as many as 500,000 Ukrainians are currently facing deportation, the vast majority civilians. All to clear out Donbas so that Russia can make the region entirely Russian-speaking. Hence, the reason so many countries are now calling this a genocide. Canada being the most recent to label it as such.
Mariupol has literally been razed to the ground as have many smaller cities throughout Luhansk and Donetsk. There has been no attempt whatsoever to differentiate between military and civilian targets. The death toll will never be known as Russia now controls much of the region and can cite whatever numbers they like. There is no way to independently verify them other than to make counter estimates based on the number of purported mass graves photographed by drones and satellites.
We do get some sense of the human cost as a result of the photographs and videos taken by soldiers and medics in the steelworks. The most compelling being the videos shot by Taira, a medic who was later captured by Russian soldiers, but not before she was able to smuggle a flash drive hidden in a tampon in one of the women evacuated from the steelworks. Her whereabouts remain unknown. Most likely her body will turn up somewhere, as did that of a Lithuanian filmmaker who was in Mariupol making a documentary. Russia badly wants to reshape the narrative of Mariupol but it is pretty hard to do given the images we have seen.
Meanwhile, Russia attempts to blockade the remainder of the coastline, hoping to crush Ukraine's economy, so that it can bleed its military dry. I suppose this is in response to the sanctions they have faced in recent months as a result of this unjustified war. The only problem is that Belarus is starting to cave, and seems willing to allow a rail corridor through its country to help get the massive supplies of wheat and sunflower oil out of Ukraine. Seems President Lukashenko is trying to play both sides of this war.
All sorts of rumors swirl that Putin is losing his grip on power, spending more time with doctors than with the commanding generals. His health has been the subject of speculation for years, ever since he started to bloat before our eyes. Lately, he seems to have a hard time walking around, and uncharacteristically had a blanket over his lap at the Victory Day celebration in Moscow. Whatever the case, he has once again taken a low profile, letting Peskov and Lavrov do the talking for him.
Most likely Russia is digging in for the long haul, as they did in Chechnya, securing their lines and plotting their push toward Odesa in the coming months or even years. The Kremlin seems to believe it has time on its side.
The longer this war drags on the more likely the Western alliance will start to unravel. It is already showing signs of doing so. France seems anxious to bring hostilities to an end even if that means Ukraine ceding a large part of its country to Russia. Germany continues to vacillate in its support. Italy took out an account in rubles to pay for gas much to the chagrin of Poland and Bulgaria, which refused to do so despite being much more reliant on Russian gas. What is emerging is a "coalition of willing," those countries willing to endure the pressures brought on by the war for the sake of ridding Europe of a tyrant. As long as these Eastern European countries continue to get the support of the US and UK it really doesn't matter what Germany and France decide. The only question is how far are they willing to go? It could reach a point where this coalition will have no choice but to physically become part of the war.
We've seen the horrors of Mariupol. Putin and his henchmen have no qualms inflicting this same assault on Odesa. They honed their skills in Grozny and Aleppo. If Russia is allowed to bide its time, they can resupply their front lines and continue their unmerciful march down the Ukrainian coast. How much of this suffering are we prepared to endure?
Surprisingly, it really hasn't dawned on some world leaders just how dangerous Vladimir Putin is. Even if he dies in the coming months, the hard line position Russia has taken will continue. The Kremlin has no intention of letting go of its hard won territories and any kind of "settlement" on their terms would mean Ukraine accepting these new boundaries. At that point, the West will have emboldened the Kremlin yet again, ensuring that Russia will continue its attempt to expand its borders in the future. Moldova is already seen as the most likely target of further aggression. After that the Baltics. A slow creeping process that leaders like Macron and Scholz seem willing to accept as long as the war doesn't spill over into the EU. This despite 6 million Ukrainians who currently find themselves EU temporary residents displaced by the war.
We shrug our shoulders in the East. It has gone beyond "I told you so," to "Are you really that daft?" You realize how Hitler was able to consolidate his power given it took 6 years for Western Europe to finally realize the danger he presented, 1933-39. At least this time around the US and UK aren't sitting on the sidelines but taking an active role in helping to arm and train Ukrainian soldiers, hoping that they can wear down Russia's vaunted army by attrition. It is already estimated that the Russian army has depleted 40 per cent of its munitions in Ukraine, but of course it has a vast stockpile of nuclear weapons it threatens to use, much of it stored in Kaliningrad.
The Fall of Mairupol was inevitable. Ukraine had no effective means of holding onto this port city on the Sea of Azov without outside assistance. However, this should be an object lesson to Western leaders, as it has given us an ample illustration of what Putin means by "liberation." He is a pathological tyrant with no respect for human life. There is no way to negotiate with such a person, and any attempt to do so is only seen as a sign of weakness on our part. Plus, we have already made such a deep investment in Ukraine's defense that to pull back now would be immeasurably worse than what we did to Afghanistan. Like it or not, this already is World War III and to pretend otherwise is to allow another tyrant an opportunity to wage war on Europe.
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