They have been cut off from resupplies for weeks and had bombs and artillery raining down on their heads for days. That’s one hell of a trap.
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They’ve still been doing small counter offenses this whole time, and they just supposedly broke free of encirclement to rescue 500 border police at the port.
If the situation was really hopeless and I was the border police, I think I might take my chances surrendering.
Literally not one single tweet that I saw ever mentioned those border police at the port. They made it sound like everyone left was inside the plant.
I don’t know is what I’m saying. There are a lot of weird times the actions don’t seem to match up with the words. Remember how a week ago you kept posting stuff that said the end was imminent, and I said let’s see what happens? Well a week later they’re still holding out.
Now it could fall tomorrow. It probably will fall at some point. But it’s just been weird.
The port was one of the last places under known Ukrainian control, though recent info made it seem the Russians had taken it.
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1516868289716232196
Russia will say yes then kill everyone, including civilians. Greenwald will go to bat for them.
Is everyone at the steel plant now or are their other pockets still outside? Will we hear about some other group being rescued?
There are still civilians all over Mariupol, most or all residential areas are Russian held, some of them will be current or future insurgents. This from 36 hours ago notes resistance near the port, the blue patches.
https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1516276209033768963?t=uBYtCJU0lxziBm2oBPdQ9A&s=19
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https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1516856725051260933
Highlights:
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1516856728608022530
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1516856730935775239
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1516856741471866882
https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1516866933089607683
Some real galaxy brain pontifications there. +1 insightful.
https://twitter.com/ConnemaraFarmer/status/1516869130837757955
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I am hoping for a miracle as much as the next guy.
This is an assessment about how much/little Ukraine still controls in Mariupol:
For comparison:
There already have been videos of Russian soldiers advancing in that area and reports of Ukrainian forces surrendering elsewhere.
The fact that they were able to maybe push for a few hundred meters to group up with another desperate group means very little in the grand scheme of things. There doesn’t seem to be any help coming and there is only so long they will be able to hold out, even if they have sufficient food, water and ammunition.
I don’t think there’s going to be a miracle. I’m just saying they could keep holding on for weeks for all we know.
https://twitter.com/IntelDoge/status/1516558782381400070
Didn’t think it was possible to get more cringe than Clinton’s ‘Fight Song’ or celebrities singing ‘Imagine’ to fight COVID but they did it.
Mariupol is one of many places where Russia has learned they will lose the war even if they “win” the city. A few more wins like Mariupol and Russia will need to start conscripting babushkas.
Ah, but then maybe there are no border police and never were…
But come on, there are some things you can be ambiguous about or say in a way that your enemy will interpret to give you an advantage based on what you know he knows or whatever, but you can’t just outright lie or what’s more likely the case here, just make inept and inaccurate statements that make you look incompetent. If you’re supposed to be the good guys, that’s a way to give away the propaganda advantage.
I’m not saying never lie, but when you do it has to be worth it. This doesn’t look like a good spot for it.
Right - you can’t just lie about things that are easily disproven. Well, unless you’re Russia or US Republicans - where you know it doesn’t matter because your audience will never hear different and never believe it if they do.
So maybe we can say a mixed strategy is best and argue about the right balance but I don’t see how these episodes are helpful. Being generous, maybe they’re probing and trying to gauge where Putin’s threshold for escalation is. But from here it just looks like they don’t really know what’s going on.