News out of Mariopol

 by KOS

News out of Mariupol suggests that many of the remaining Ukrainian fighters are restricted to the Azovstal metal refinery on the southeast of the city. That may make it seem that Russia has these Ukrainian forces backed into a single building, which they can simply level with the next round of artillery.

But that plant is actually an enormous expanse of connected refineries, factories, offices, and shipping facilities. Overall, there’s about a square mile of Azovstal buildings, plus miles more of slag heaps, coal piles, and metal ore around them. It was easily the least scenic area in Mariupol, even before the bombing began—the kind of industrial hellscape seen in some American cities before the steel industry was made to clean up its act. It’s just that now the rest of the Mariupol has been reduced to match.

Mariupol showing areas still thought to be under Ukrainian control

The blue area here represents most of the Azovstal buildings. This is also the area where a large number of surrenders were reported on Wednesday. This suggests that not everyone in this area—which is known to have held members of the 36th Marine Brigade—took part in the surrender. On the west side of the map, in the area colored yellow, is an area that was earlier known to be under the control of the Azov Battalion. Some members of the 36th earlier fought their way across that gap in between (a space that contains a lot of the slag heaps, coal piles, etc) to connect with Azov. At the start of the week, Ukrainian fighters were also said to hold positions in the north-central part of the city, but there have been few reports from that area and the current status isn’t known. 

In any case, Russia seems focused on crushing the resistance that remains at Azovstal.