On February 24, 2022, 5:30 am Moscow khbrknews, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced to the world that Russia was initiating a “special military operation” to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine. In reality, Russia was launching a full-scale invasion to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected government. Bombs began to fall on cities across Ukraine the moment Putin ended his speech. While the air campaign continued, Russian forces descended on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, and other large cities.
A major portion of Putin’s force also converged on Mariupol. Prior to the invasion, Mariupol was Ukraine’s tenth-largest city with an estimated population of 431,000. More importantly, it was one of Ukraine’s largest ports that serviced approximately 2550 ships and 17 million tons of cargo annually. Located on the Sea of Azov, it was the largest city along the “land bridge” that connected the Donbas, Ukrainian territory that Russian-led separatists seized in 2014-2015, with the Crimean Peninsula that Russia had illegally annexed in 2014.
Russian forces rapidly attacked the city from three directions. Russian forces and Russian-controlled military forces from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics advanced on Mariupol from the city’s northeast. Russian Naval Infantry advanced on the city’s west, after having conducted an amphibious landing on February 25. Russian forces originating from Crimea and advancing through Berdyansk had reached Mariupol’s west and began initial assaults into the city on February 27. By March 2, less than a week into the war, Russian forces had surrounded Mariupol by land and sea. With the rest of the country under siege, the limited Ukrainian forces now trapped in the city were left to defend it without any hope of reinforcements or resupply.
The Russian attackers quickly pushed the greatly outnumbered defenders into a large industrial zone along the city’s southeastern coastline that…
