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04-03-2022
MOSCOW/ KYIV: In the seven days since this conflict began, southern Ukraine has become a critical defensive front against Russia’s advances.
Moscow has chosen to lay siege to multiple cities there, viewing the region as strategically vital to the success of the invasion as a whole.
Not only would controlling the coast sever the rest of Ukraine from the sea, it would also create a direct connection between Russian-annexed Crimea and the Russian-speaking Donbas region.
Let’s take a minute to recap what’s been happening there:
Kherson has a population of 280,000 and is so far the largest city to fall to Russian forces. It sits on the banks of the Dnieper River, giving those in control access to critical canals supplying water to Crimea.
Another large port is Mariupol, population 430,000, which is being shelled and encircled. If successfully seized, Russia will have established a direct link between eastern Ukraine and Crimea, both of which are already Russian-controlled.
Crimea is a Russian-speaking part of Ukraine that was annexed by Moscow in 2014. It’s where Russia launched much of this southern offensive from one week ago.
Odessa is Ukraine’s third-largest city and the country’s most important port on the Black Sea, as well as being a major oil terminus, so far, its one million residents have escaped the worst of the fighting. This is because Russia has currently made no concerted effort to advance west of Kherson, beyond isolated reports of paratrooper landings.
More now from the southern port city of Mariupol on the Black Sea, which has come under sustained attack from Russian forces.
The local authorities there say that Russians are stopping the supplies of electricity, water and heat, and also destroying bridges and rail links.
“They are hindering food supplies, blocking us like in Leningrad,” the city council says in its latest statement, referring to the deadly and prolonged siege of the Russian city by German forces during World War Two.
“Soldiers from the Putin horde are constantly shelling the city, preventing us from evacuating the injured, and women and children.
“This is the genocide of the Ukrainian people,” the statement says.
On the other hand, media reports;
It’s been one week since Russia invaded Ukraine and attacks are intensifying on key cities.
More than one million people have already fled the country and hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed.
Russian forces have taken control of Kherson in the south, the first major city to fall.
If they capture more southern cities, Ukrainian forces could be cut off from the sea.
In Mariupol, a strategic port near the Russian border, residents are trapped by intense shelling.
Kyiv remains in government control and a large Russian armoured convoy remains some distance away.
Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister warns a third world war would be nuclear but says Russians are not thinking about this. (Int’l News Desk)
