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A joint military operation of the People’s Militias (PM) of the newly recognized republics and the Russian Armed Forces continues in the LDPR. Targeted strikes by the Russian Air Force destroyed facilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). A military unit near Nikolayevka in the Mariupol direction was also destroyed.
According to DPR head D. Pushylin, information emerged that the Ukrainian Security Service had planned to blow up two enterprises in Mariupol.
The Ukrainian MLRS in Mariupol:
The situation on 24 February was developing rapidly. The Azov division is still holding Mariupol.
Ukrainian servicemen are suffering casualties and are asking for humanitarian corridors to be opened for withdrawal. According to Eduard Baturin, the official representative of the DPR People’s Militia, the Command has fled.
DPR units and Russian troops also suffer losses. There are captives on both sides.
The Ukrainian army is preparing to defend Mariupol. AFU military set up firing positions inside the city blocks. Ukrainian army shells hail from residential areas of the city.
Nationalist battalions block civilians from leaving the city. There are reports of shootings of city residents who try to leave the city. Fighters of the nationalist units fortify themselves in the apartments of multi-storey buildings, keeping civilians there as human shields.
This attitude towards civilians is explained by the fact that the fighters of Ukrainian nationalist formations are mostly from the western regions of the country, while the local population consists of ethnic Russians or people loyal to Russia.
Quotes from residents of Mariupol from Telegram channels: “We sit in our homes. The rumble of guns is constant, hailstones also work. Houses both private and multi-storey are blown up. Azov is all over the city, entry/exit is prohibited. We are hostages. Tanks of the AFU drive into Azovstal, stopped the blast furnace…”.
“The Nazis fired mines at a car cooperative of 30 garages in the Eastern Microdistrict in the Levoberezhny District.”
“They put machine guns in the apartments”
“On the roofs of 9-storey buildings they set up mortars…”
“There are snipers on the rooftops and mortars on the rooftops in Vostochny”.
Units of the First Army Corps of the DPR, in cooperation with Russian forces continue their advance towards Mariupol. Overcoming engineering means would be a great difficult for advancing troops. Minefields are located both on the outskirts and on streets of the city. There have been cases where, after hitting a minefield, a unit immediately came under artillery fire and suffered casualties.
Crimea
At the same time, a grouping of Russian troops is coming from Crimea toward Zaporizhzhya to connect with the “northern” grouping coming from the direction of Melovoye.
If these forces join together, the largest AFU grouping in Donbass, numbering about 100,000 people, may find itself in the “cauldron”.
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Meanwhile, in Mariupol, preparations are underway to evacuate military, and blast furnaces of the largest metallurgical production facilities are being prepared to shut down and blow up.
Mariupol acts as the southernmost node of a large-scale AFU grouping up to 50,000 men that extends from the Azov Sea, through Marinka and out toward Kramatorsk.
This grouping is encircled and cut off from the south and north by Russian forces.
The evacuation of Ukrainian security forces from Mariupol is already late and virtually irrelevant. Even if the troops withdraw immediately, they will come under attack from both Russian groups, depending on the direction of the breakthrough. They can only retreat along the roads, and they are completely under the control of Russian troops and aviation.
If the Russian army continues to be successful in encircling Ukrainian army units and nationalist battalions, Mariupol will become a cut-off and isolated industrial and military asset in the rear of Russian forces.
The Ukrainian group will be left with two options, either to withdraw through a humanitarian corridor, if one is provided, or to attempt a massive breakthrough in the most vulnerable section of the front, suffering heavy losses in manpower and body strength.
