Photos from airport
The VSN is confident that the port of Mariupol will fall in the next few
days. Repeatedly, the DNR leadership staked its claim to Mariupol, and
now its sending troops there again. In the last 24 hours, clashes
intensified near the city…. a key port and railway junction, a major
motorway crossing point, along with being a major industrial centre.
Last year, during the counteroffensive, the VSN didn’t capture the city
more for political and not military reasons… the advance to Mariupol
halted because of orders from the political leadership, not due to the
resistance offered by the so-called “National Guard”. The authorities
ordered a halt, despite the fact that control of Mariupol virtually
opens a direct route to the Crimea… the only major town between Mariupol
and the Crimea, Berdyansk, lacks any significant geographical advantage
for a defender.
More @ Voices From Russia
More naked Russian aggression. The rebels aren't even claiming that the locals are asking the rebel forces to "liberate" them. It doesn't take a logistical genius to figure out that it's more efficient to move troops And heavy equipment across land than on ferries across the stormy straights connecting the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Small wonder they have no compunctions about shelling civilians. After all Russian oligarchs have been paving the paths of their policies in south eastern Europe with Ukrainian corpses for over three centuries.
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