Six particularly competitive locations
Russian army reports strategic successes
By Tobias Nordmann, Martin Morcinek and Laura Stresing
03/04/2022 2:37 p.m
War has been raging in Ukraine for more than a week. On the night of February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the attack on the neighboring country. What specific goals the Kremlin boss is pursuing remains unclear to this day. However, it is obvious that the resistance of the Ukrainians is much greater than Putin expected. The Russian ruler said on Thursday that the offensive was going exactly as planned. But international experts doubt the statements of the 69-year-old. With Cherson, the Russian armed forces have so far managed to conquer only one larger Ukrainian city. We take a look at the current situation (as of Friday afternoon) at the currently strategically most important locations.
The situation in Kherson: The seaport city in southern Ukraine (northwest of Crimea) is now under Russian control. This was confirmed by Ukrainian officials on Thursday. Cherson is the first major city in the country to be conquered by the invaders. The US government also assumes that Cherson has fallen. Although there is no one on site, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN that there is no reason to doubt the reports coming from the Ukrainians themselves. Recently there had also been reports that Cherson had been abandoned by the Ukrainian army. There was no longer any mention of fighting in the situation reports of the Ukrainian defenders.
The metropolis with 290,000 inhabitants is considered a strategically important conquest. The Russian military is apparently trying to encircle Ukraine. With Cherson, an important Black Sea port falls into Russian hands. The loss of the port city is a heavy blow for the economy of Ukraine and the supply in the country. However, control of Cherson is also important for the Russians in order to prepare attacks on the other important port cities of Mykolaiv (the offensive is already underway here) and Odessa. Should Mykolaiv and Odessa fall, Ukraine would be cut off from access to the world’s seas. The adviser to the Ukrainian president, Oleksiy Arestovych, is cautiously optimistic. We are cautiously optimistic about future developments. He explains that advances by the Russian army towards the city of Mykolayiv have been repelled. However, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov reported that the Ukrainian Navy sunk its flagship “Hetman Sahaydachnyj” itself so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy. The frigate was anchored for repairs. It is said that Odessa, which is further west, has not yet been exposed to any immediate danger.
The situation around the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia: The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is under Russian control. After an attack during the night, the facility was completely taken on Friday morning. This was confirmed by a regional authority. The existing operating staff monitor the condition of the power plant blocks. This is to ensure that operations continue to meet safety requirements. The attack caused a fire on the premises. According to the authorities, the fire broke out in a building used for training purposes, so the reactor blocks were not affected, but the power supply to a nearby town was. As the Mayor of Enerhodar announced via Telegram, the on-site apartments remained without heating during the shelling due to damage to a district heating pipe. Strategically, the nuclear power plant is particularly important because it can contribute up to 20 percent of the country’s energy supply in regular operation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Russian tanks of deliberately firing at the facility. “This is terror on an unprecedented scale,” he said in a speech. The history of Europe could have ended with the explosion of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. “The memory of Chernobyl is completely gone among the Russian military,” emphasized the 44-year-old. The Russian Defense Ministry, in turn, blames “Ukrainian saboteurs” for the attack on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. This is a monstrous provocation, it said.
Location in Mariupol: According to British sources, Ukrainian forces remain in control of the south-east port city of Mariupol. However, the British Ministry of Defense announced that it was probably surrounded by the Russian army on the basis of a new intelligence situation report. As a result, the civilian infrastructure continues to be under intense fire from the Russian military. Putin had recently denied that attacks would be directed against such targets. “The enemy has a significant technical advantage,” says a Ukrainian situation report. In addition, the anti-aircraft system on the Black Sea coast was attacked. The information could not be independently verified.
Mayor Wadym Boitschenko warned on Thursday of a siege “like in Leningrad”. The Russian troops would besiege the city and try to cut off Mariupol’s electricity, food, water, heating and infrastructure. “They destroyed the trains, so we couldn’t get our wives, children and elderly people out of the city,” Boichenko explained. The “Blockade of Leningrad” by the German Wehrmacht in World War II claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Like Kherson (see above), the city on the Sea of Azov is strategically important for blocking Ukraine’s sea trade. In addition, the urban area of Mariupol almost borders on the contact line with the separatist-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine. Taking Mariupol would open up a direct land corridor for Russian forces to the Crimean Peninsula.
Location in the capital Kyiv: According to the Ukrainian army, the Russian soldiers are continuing their advance towards the capital Kyiv. “The main efforts of the occupiers are concentrated on the encirclement of Kiev,” according to the Ukrainian general staff’s latest morning report. However, no information was given about fighting around the city of millions. Air alerts have been raised multiple times in the city since midnight. Residents were to take shelter in air raid shelters. According to the Ukrainian account, the attackers’ troops have meanwhile withdrawn from the fiercely contested Hostomel airfield northwest of Kyiv. It is not known whether this was due to Ukrainian combat successes. There is also no new information about the Russian convoy, which has been moving towards Kyiv and has apparently come to a standstill. You can read the last known status here.
The situation in Kharkiv: As the very well-informed US institute ISW reports in a recent briefing (Thursday, 10 p.m. our time), Russian attempts to conquer the country’s second-largest city are still unsuccessful. However, bad air raids are reported again and again, also on residential buildings, commercial areas and shopping centers. Massive destruction has been documented from the city center. According to information verified by RTL/ntv, there was, among other things, a major fire in the immediate vicinity of an office building of the Ukrainian secret service SBU near a famous cathedral.
Nevertheless, the analysts are amazed at the approach of the attackers, who deploy individual battalions on different lines instead of relying on a concerted action. In the briefing of the institute It says: “This failure of the basic operational art – long a strength of the Soviet military and intensively studied in Russian military academies – remains inexplicable.”
Possibly Putin is already preparing a particularly brutal attack on the city. Several media reported on Thursday that a TOS weapon system was sighted around 70 kilometers from the city. This is multiple rocket launches that can inflict particularly devastating destruction through the use of vacuum explosive devices. According to the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of the Civilian Population, the use of such weapons is prohibited.
The situation in Chernihiv: According to Ukrainian sources, 47 people were killed in Russian airstrikes in northern Ukraine. The local authorities in the city on the Desna recently corrected their information upwards after they had previously spoken of 33 fatalities. Russian forces shelled residential areas, including schools and a high-rise building, Ukrainian officials said. According to their own statements, the rescue services had to temporarily suspend their work on Thursday due to heavy shelling. The city with 300,000 inhabitants lies in the border triangle of Ukraine, Belarus (which may also send troops to the war) and Russia and is considered strategically important for encircling Kyiv from the north along the Desna and Dnieper rivers.