Day 24 Summary
https://militaryland.net/ukraine/invasio...4-summary/
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgro...t-march-19
General situation is that the Russian invasion seems to have stalled out in most parts of the country. But the Ukrainians are unable to take advantage and counterattack, due to their own losses and to their lack of effective air power.
Around Kyiv the Russians continue to move in supplies and reinforcements, but haven't made any big advances.
In the northeast closer to the Russian border both Chernihiv and Sumy are still in Ukrainian hands and are resisting fiercely, even though they are effectively surrounded. Russian spearhead columns have bypassed these cities and proceeded on towards Kyiv, but aren't strong enough to assault that Ukrainian stronghold.
Further east at Kharkiv, the situation is pretty much unchanged. The Ukrainians hold the city center, the Russians pound it with artillery from the northern outskirts.
In the far eastern oblasts, the Russians are consolidating their strong positions and trying to eliminate the last Ukrainian strongpoints.
Mariupol remains surrounded and under relentless attack. The Ukrainians have tried to get reinforcements to them by both land and air, and have failed. Fighting in that city is street by street and building by building and loss of life is high. It's expected that Mariupol will fall in coming days.
In the southwest, the Russians are back in control of Kherson airport but seem to have given up attacking west towards Mykolaiv in favor of moving north towards Krivyi Rih. They have taken many small places on the map, but these are small farm villages. The large Black Sea port of Odessa remains threatened but not yet under attack. A big event in Mykolaiv was a Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian army barracks that totally obliterated it with many dead.
Warning the photo in the link below shows the destroyed barracks and might be disturbing to some, when you make out what the rubble in the foreground contains.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FOJ_waDXwAIV...ame=medium
Air and missile attacks on military facilities in far western Ukraine have picked up as more NATO supplies have flowed in to the Ukrainians, but the Russians haven't yet launched any ground attacks in these areas.
(Mar 20, 2022 03:24 AM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]A thing (actually on of many) I don't understand is why bother with street fighting. If the toilets haven't worked for a week and the mobile phone masts are blown up (if not now then shortly) - what is there inside a bombed out city that makes it attractive to an invading army?
The original Russian plan seems to have been to run fast armored columns into the major Ukrainian cities within the first few days of the war. The most important of these would be the Capital Kyiv. They would replace the government there with one of their choosing and that would be that. Ukraine would their satellite.
They never seem to have expected the kind of fierce resistance that they encountered and instead expected much of the population (especially the Russian-speaking minority in the east) to welcome them.
That strategy seems to have failed miserably. But Moscow as yet hasn't adopted a new strategy and instead keeps trying to resurrect the old one, which seems to many observers to be increasingly hopeless.