jhungary
MILITARY PROFESSIONAL
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2012
- Messages
- 19,295
- Reaction score
- 387
- Country
- Location
First off, in my opinion, regardless of the situation in Mariupol, Russian offensive in Kyiv probably is only going to stay where it was, or even being counter attacked, so no matter how this goes, I don't think Russia have enough combat power to take anything West of Dnieper river, unless they start another general mobilisation, which they would have to raise a similar amount of troop. They can do that, but it would take a long time to move, train and deploy them all to the part of battlefield you want.Leaving Mariopol would put Ukrainian forces in the east at risk of encirclement that is why it can be part of a general ceasefire deal that would make both sides gain something and accept. It would be a security guarantee for Ukraine to not be encircled and if ceasefire is broken especially western side will get populated with better weapon support like high altitude sam cover. Sams(hawk,patriot etc.) installed in west of Dniper can cover some area in estern parts that troops can take limited cover from air attacks and make counter attacks to east and south if they retreat west if ceasefire is broken by Russia. Russia would gain Mariopol and use the gained land in negotiations also during negotiations counter Ukraine attacks to its positions in south would stop and gearing up of Ukraine from western borders would stop.
Troop losses would be high in Mariopol capture but if Russia transfers volunteers to attack Mariopol most casualties would come from some 40k volunteers as an initial wave of attack. There would still be soldiers left to encircle the eastern Ukraine forces in the north but it would take time and economic conditions-supplies that Ru army is getting.
I know if the Russian can capture Mariupol, they would have soldier to encircle the Donbas defender, but the question is how many can they get. There are roughly 40,000 troop in Donbas (Latest intel suggest there were 6 regiments) and they are in defensive position that was made since 2014, in a conventional way of thinking, you need 3 to 1 to overcome a static defence, which mean you will need approximately 120,000 troop to be able to pull that off, that would mean the Russian would need to get out of the Mariupol siege relatively unharmed.
Now, I don't know how much Russian lost, but I don't think from the intensity of fighting I have heard that Russian troop were relatively unharmed. They would need to draw in more troop for that particular defensive position alone, so they may not be in an "Advantageous" position as we thought they would have.