The battle for Mariupol is coming to an end after nearly three months of heavy bombardment that left thousands dead and stories of terror and starvation.
An analysis by CNN News on the 17th pointed out that Ukrainian forces announced on Monday night that they had ended their combat mission at the Azovstal steel plant. Hundreds of Ukrainian troops have withdrawn, and so will the remaining fighters. And for weeks, this had been the last major stronghold of Malibo that had not yet fallen.
Malibo is a port city on the Sea of Azov. Since the Russian army invaded Ukraine at the end of February, it has always been a hot spot of fierce fighting between the two sides. Here Russian forces bombed maternity wards and theaters where hundreds of civilians took refuge. However, the evidence of all these atrocities may be lost forever.
Before the Kremlin occupied Malibo, the local city council accused the Russian army of wanting to obliterate evidence, using an operational crematorium to destroy the remains and going through a “filtration camp” to find any witnesses to the atrocities. The city council said the killers were covering their tracks. However, the Kremlin denied all this.
Malibo has become a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to the ruthless attack of the Russian army. Even after the fall of most of the local area, some Ukrainian troops still defended the Azov Steel Plant, protecting at most thousands of civilians. However, as food and water ran out and hundreds of injured were not properly cared for, the situation inside the plant went from bad to worse.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously said tens of thousands of people were killed in Malipo, while the local regional military administration said in April that as many as 22,000 people were killed. These deaths are difficult to confirm due to the uncertainty of the fighting. However, according to estimates by Mayor Malibo, 90% of the local infrastructure is damaged, and 40% of it cannot be repaired.
Michael Kofman, who specializes in Russian military research at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, pointed out that for the Russian military, controlling Malibo means occupying a wider area than the non-separation zone. Key to the Donbas region. He said that it was unrealistic for the Russian army to declare the occupation of Donbass without actual control of the local big cities, and the capture of Ma Libo should release troops and logistics to deal with other parts of the Donbass.
However, to occupy Malibo still requires a lot of resources, and Russia is likely to need all mobilized troops to storm the re-targeted Udong. Analysts say the Russian army may simply raze Ma Libo to the ground to make the occupation easier. This is especially true after the Russian general Alexander Dvornikov, nicknamed the “Syrian Butcher”, took over and was in charge of the war against Ukraine. He was responsible for pacifying Chechnya from 2000 to 2003, and then in 2015-2016, he led a Russian expedition to Syria. Under his leadership, the Russian troops did not care whether the people lived or died, bombed civilian areas, and only destroyed them.
He basically destroyed Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, said Orysia Lutsevych, a researcher at Chatham House, a British think tank. And Dvornikov’s strategy is very simple, that is, to blow up all living holes, even civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, and capture them. In fact, when Russia and Ukraine were still at war in Malibo in April, she pointed out that the Russian army used the same strategy locally.