Russian special military operation in Ukraine #16

Ukraine orders Azovstal fighters to surrender



The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed in its social networks, on Tuesday evening, that its servicemen holed up at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have been ordered to surrender. 

“The garrison “Mariupol” has completed the assigned combat mission. The highest military command issued an order to the commanders of the units located at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the Ukrainian military statement explained. According to Kiev, while holding positions at Azovstal, its soldiers prevented Russian troops from operating in other theaters.

The first stage of surrender was completed on Monday. 264 soldiers left Azovstal. There are now 53 wounded servicemen in a hospital in Novoazovsk and 211 soldiers in Yelenovka, both of which are part of the Donetsk People’s Republic. 

Russian sources have estimated that about 2,200 people have been trapped in the basements of the huge Azovstal complex. The site is eleven square kilometres long and its subterranean sections are designed to withstand a nuclear attack. 

According to the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, those who surrender will be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, taken captive by Kiev. However, the terms of the exchange have not yet been decided.

Moscow has not yet made any public statements about an exchange. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side has tried to avoid the use of the expression "surrender".

After the last Ukrainian soldier leaves Azovstal, the battle for Mariupol will be effectively over and Russia will have gained total control of the strategically vital city.



So azovstal is done , we will see where this goes

limb wrote:

Except this isn't WW2. Nobody apart from some schizos is talking about a war of annihilation. The more territory the ukrainian regime holds, the more it can brainwash the residents of that territory.  There simply should be more troops. 500000 is needed, not 200000. There needs to be a wide frontline where the russians can outflank the ukrainians, since they have better strategic mobility.

Yes, not WW2 in speed and ferocity as well. More troops are needed, but Russia fights with what they have, Russia doesn't have enormous professional military and they don't want to comit conscripts, and rightly so. A decade ago Russia had almost no professional military so this wouldn't be possible on such a scale. How Russia will solve those issues is another thing and I have no clue, we will wait and see.

Also, I forgot to address Finland and Sweden.

Putin said it's their choice to join, BUT if they start placing assets of strategic importance then Russia will respond in kind. Only western media claim that Putin is threatening annihilation or opening of a new front. His response is below and actually very sane.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1526197369259409409

Vann7, actually V.Putin wrote:"Russia has no problem with those states. So there is no direct threat from expansion to those countries. But deploying military infrastructure will provoke a response [...] based on the threats they create for us"

Arkanghelsk wrote:Ukraine orders Azovstal fighters to surrender

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed in its social networks, on Tuesday evening, that its servicemen holed up at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have been ordered to surrender. 

“The garrison “Mariupol” has completed the assigned combat mission. The highest military command issued an order to the commanders of the units located at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the Ukrainian military statement explained. According to Kiev, while holding positions at Azovstal, its soldiers prevented Russian troops from operating in other theaters.

So azovstal is done , we will see where this goes

Orders

Haha, there is literally no reason why they couldn't order it before. I think little did they order and it was General Gangrene who ordered them to give up.

Did you see recent pictures from them? There are so many amputees, looked a lot like the post WW1 return of defeated Germans from the Western Front... Trench foot, dysentery, diseases, and infections affected told had more say than Zelensky, I hate that Ukraine wants to paint it as a rescue operation too.

Isos wrote:

Losses are huge for Russia.

No. They aren't.

FFS stop repeating ukropi propaganda. Keep up this shit and you'll end up on the list of clowns and fools that no-one listens to. Your choice bud.

mnztr wrote:ret russian col. warns of 1M ukrainian troops

Who is this guy? Its on Russian state media so what are they trying to accomplish?

he is an idiot with western complex. And Im not sure why Skabayeva asked such moron to come. Perhaps in later part (cut on twitter) she "destroyed" him with logic not "imaginable fears"

How does he knows what is the fighting spirit in Ukrainian army?

Source? ukro media? army? imagination? He knows something Russian top brass dont?



Ukro army with million people?

So now that Azovstal has fallen, how will the azov fighters be presented to Ukrainian nation ?

Has the message already sunken in with hohols that this is the fate which awaits them if they turn a city into a fortress like azovstal?

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

mnztr wrote:ret russian col. warns of 1M ukrainian troops

Who is this guy? Its on Russian state media so what are they trying to accomplish?

he is an idiot with western complex. And Im not sure why Skabayeva asked such moron to come. Perhaps in later part (cut on twitter) she "destroyed" him with logic not "imaginable fears"

How does he knows  what is the  fighting spirit in Ukrainian army?

Source? ukro media? army? imagination? He knows something Russian top brass dont?  



Ukro army with million people?

Western complex? No, just an old guard maximalist. I know people like him who think that every single civilian should be mobilized.

For them even war in Chechnya was call for mobilization, hell even Strelkov is the same, calling for mobilization for Syria It's easy to be a blind maximalist when you hate civilian life and don't understand the scope.


Milion people in Ukrainian army would be impossible to coordinate, feed, and equip and it would be a paper army. Even the goal of a 500k army is hard to achieve, Ukrainian generals themselves said that without the support they have no chance to field such numbers. But even then, we are talking about millions of ammunitions, it's not piecemeal m777 howitzers, NATO needs literally donate whole army's worth of equipment and then provide training. Does it look that they are ready for Ho Chi Minh trail?

Let's imagine 1 million of Ukrainian army. Size of it would require strong logistics and Ukraine has shortages of fuel already, not to mention transport.

Imagine the mobility of their army as well. Warehouses used to resupply and store their spares and munitions. Kalibrs would have a field day.

Oh by all means, if Ukraine had such army it would collapse on it's weak legs. We already know how ineffective immobile blobs of infantry are in the war (shout out to Ukrainian territorial guard units who are bypassed or scattered left and right during the stage 2 of the operation)

Arkanghelsk wrote:So now that Azovstal has fallen, how will the azov fighters be presented to Ukrainian nation ?

Has the message already sunken in with hohols that this is the fate which awaits them if they turn a city into a fortress like azovstal?

For civvies - give them two months and they will be forgotten, just like "cyborgs" or the airport were. Good meme, but only can be drained for so long.

For soldiers who actually saw what happened to Azovstal- the message is clear. No one will save them if they get in such a situation. Also, not whole Mariupol became a fortress, not all the cities have Azovstal like factories/locations, I looked at Odesa and I don't think it's even close to be as defendable as Mariupol was. We will see.

Mig-31BM2 Super Irbis-E wrote:
Nathan Ruser
@Nrg8000
Putin's War - May 16th Map Briefing.
Today there are unconfirmed but reliable reports that Ukrainian forces have crossed the Donets river near Kharkiv and taken up positions in 2 villages.
Russia captured a village near Lyman and Adiivka.
4th map shows recaptured land in yellow.

Another clown posting enemy propaganda....

"Recaptured" land? This is nearly all territory vacated by Russia as they redeployed there forces to support the grinding opertaion in Donbass.

WTF is wrong with these guys? They have been here for years and have been sensible forum members for that time, yet now they are actively spreading the most absurd Ukropi agitprop bullshit. Look at that map... The idiot who put it together expects us to belive that there are areas of liberated Lugansk oblast that the LPR doesn't control, or vast swathes of Kherson and Zaporizhya oblasts that Russian forces don't control... Sheer unmitigated propaganda nonsense.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Another clown posting enemy propaganda....  

Today there are unconfirmed but reliable reports that Ukrainian forces

what propaganda -reports were reliable

More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers have been evacuated from a steel plant in Mariupol, the country’s deputy defence minister said, after a weeks-long standoff with Russian forces in the besieged southern port city.

Anna Malyar said in the early hours of Tuesday that 53 seriously wounded fighters were taken from the Azovstal steelworks to a hospital in Novoazovsk, while an additional 211 fighters were evacuated to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor.

An exchange would be worked out for their return home, she said.


Who are these being exchanged?

I wonder what is happening in Azovstal

There is talk of surrender but they are saying an exchange ?

Maybe this is the beginning, those 250 will eat and sleep , the rest of Azov will surrender soon when they see these guys in better conditions then them

The smell must be so rotten

Saying cheesy gangrene and corpse smell

And if theirs yanks there as shown in pics earlier I wonder what will become of them

https://t.me/swodki/97246

inside Azovstal, the nazis are experiencing nightmarish bombing daily

There is 2000 men there, and this is way bigger then some stupid "counter offensive" by some raid units of Ukraine

The main bulk of Azov brigade has been forced to surrender

There is no saving them

All of Ukraine will understand it

Arkanghelsk wrote:More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers have been evacuated from a steel plant in Mariupol, the country’s deputy defence minister said, after a weeks-long standoff with Russian forces in the besieged southern port city.

Anna Malyar said in the early hours of Tuesday that 53 seriously wounded fighters were taken from the Azovstal steelworks to a hospital in Novoazovsk, while an additional 211 fighters were evacuated to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor.

An exchange would be worked out for their return home, she said.


Who are these being exchanged?

I wonder what is happening in Azovstal

There is talk of surrender but they are saying an exchange ?

Maybe this is the beginning, those 250 will eat and sleep , the rest of Azov will surrender soon when they see these guys in better conditions then them

The smell must be so rotten

Saying cheesy gangrene and corpse smell

And if theirs yanks there as shown in pics earlier I wonder what will become of them

There almost no Russian POWs to exchange as reported. Ukrainians did say they don't take POWs, I hope this is not true, but the POW videos stopped, only old DNR/LNR guys end up captured.

I hate cripple circus, but this was posted by Ukrainians days before the surrender. Not to mention reports of diseases and infections.

I doubt they have anyone actually healthy in Azovstal.





These 50 heavily injured must be really bad condition.


I can't believe that Ukrainian media tries to claim this as a victory... Let those images sink in their heads.

Regular wrote:

limb wrote:

Except this isn't WW2. Nobody apart from some schizos is talking about a war of annihilation. The more territory the ukrainian regime holds, the more it can brainwash the residents of that territory.  There simply should be more troops. 500000 is needed, not 200000. There needs to be a wide frontline where the russians can outflank the ukrainians, since they have better strategic mobility.

Yes, not WW2 in speed and ferocity as well. More troops are needed, but Russia fights with what they have, Russia doesn't have enormous professional military and they don't want to comit conscripts, and rightly so. A decade ago Russia had almost no professional military so this wouldn't be possible on such a scale. How Russia will solve those issues is another thing and I have no clue, we will wait and see.

Also, I forgot to address Finland and Sweden.

Putin said it's their choice to join, BUT if they start placing assets of strategic importance then Russia will respond in kind. Only western media claim that Putin is threatening annihilation or opening of a new front. His response is below and actually very sane.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1526197369259409409

Vann7, actually V.Putin wrote:"Russia has no problem with those states. So there is no direct threat from expansion to those countries. But deploying military infrastructure will provoke a response [...] based on the threats they create for us"

Arkanghelsk wrote:Ukraine orders Azovstal fighters to surrender

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed in its social networks, on Tuesday evening, that its servicemen holed up at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have been ordered to surrender. 

“The garrison “Mariupol” has completed the assigned combat mission. The highest military command issued an order to the commanders of the units located at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the Ukrainian military statement explained. According to Kiev, while holding positions at Azovstal, its soldiers prevented Russian troops from operating in other theaters.

So azovstal is done , we will see where this goes

Orders

Haha, there is literally no reason why they couldn't order it before. I think little did they order and it was General Gangrene who ordered them to give up.

Did you see recent pictures from them? There are so many amputees, looked a lot like the post WW1 return of defeated Germans from the Western Front... Trench foot, dysentery, diseases, and infections affected told had more say than Zelensky, I hate that Ukraine wants to paint it as a rescue operation too.

The amount of professional soldiers in the Russian army is supposed to be definitely more than 200000. If what you're saying is true, then that means that Russia has committed all of its combat capable troops, because conscripts aren't combat capable. They're mainly capable of noncombat support and menial labor.

limb wrote:

The amount of professional soldiers in the Russian army is supposed to be definitely more than 200000. If what you're saying is true, then that means that Russia has committed all of its combat capable troops, because conscripts aren't combat capable. They're mainly capable of noncombat support and menial labor.

Yes, conscripts can always find things to do in the rear echelon, believe me I know that first hand

What I am talking about is realistic numbers of kontraktchiki that can be sent to the front without compromising whole regional security and not to mention, regulary rotated with fresher. This can be big advantage over-exhausted Ukrainian units.  

I think Russia has around 400k+ of professional soldiers. If I am correct, airforce, air defence and other "sophisticated" branches are fully staffed by professionals as conscripts don't have enough time to learn to operate such systems, not to mention career opportunities that are only available for contract soldiers are totally not interesting/rewarding for conscripts. So to think, 120k deployed (if that's correct in the first place) is already a large chunk as there are more threats for Russia than Ukraine, and professional soldiers, for better or worse, are the backbone of the Russian army. Nothing to do with conscripts not being combat capable, just the way that Russia doesn't want to repeat bad Afghanistan or Chechnya experiences, conscripts are still very useful in defense.

All I am saying, Russia is not in the same position as US. They bring millions of own/allies and auxiliary troops into any fucking conflict. Not simping for US, just saying that they always advantage in numbers against their foes. Never did they face peer or close to peer adversary that didn't collapse during the first weeks of onslaught.

flamming_python wrote:

Objectively speaking how many M-777s and where?
Objectively speaking why is it a surprise a few have gotten through considering night time is a thing and not all roads out of the Donbass are blockaded?
Objectively speaking how are they superior to a D-20 that the Ukraine probably has in stock more of anyway along with more ammo for it?

Night time is the best time to hunt. After all don't they have the "night hunter"? A M777 under tow will light up like a christmas tree on IR, and the helos and SU-25 will be safer from MANPADs

sepheronx wrote:Russia also has paramilitary units as well staffed in far greater numbers than conscripts. Then add in the volunteer forced and finally the mercenaries which didn't really exist for Russia until Syria honestly.  In Georgia they had volunteer units but no official mercenary force as I'm aware.

For front line, it's still the professional military that keeps the width. Just good old BTGs, full of armor and artillery.

Yes, Rosgvardiya is amazing. Well trained and can do the rear work very well. They are lightly armored, but their duties involve policing, anti-terrorism, elimination of small hostile elements. Ukraine is just another day for them. I don't think we realise how good Russia has it now compared how their previous conflicts. Not sure what else conscripts can do to help the effort. Even for menial tasks, well, DNR and LRN troops are there and it's better than it's actually them doing the heavy lifting, why some 18 year old obloukh from far east has to fix the road when you can have basically local guy doing the same. They told that DNR/LNR reservists won't be participating in combat operations so maybe mosins will be replaced with shovels and hammers. Not to mention POWs can give a hand (if they have them that is). So far Russian rear lines are secure, especially compared to the early stages. Not sure about the front, but I think Russian command knows what they are doing.

flamming_python wrote:Man I swear this forum is becoming an Ukro outpost is Yuri from Red Alert 2 active or something?  

Give it a break fellas. You want to find out the real picture, read the Rus MoD reports, or the various sitreps that are posted here. No amount of Ukrainian psyops is going to change the basic catastrophic situation for them. No 1-2 M777 howitzers brought in. No nothing.

Some of you guys are completely delusional, panicking over some M777s. Do you know what kind of firepower superiority Russia enjoys everywhere along the front?
If it's not taking out the Ukros as yet, and I don't know whether it is or isn't - so that means it's waiting for them to advance further. Similar to how it was done in Kherson. End of.

Yep the m777 is just a nice gun but no game changer, especially without AFATDS attached.

Anyone know how many troops have surrendered at Azovstal in the past 24hrs?
Also do we know if they are Azov or regular AFU?

Regular wrote:

limb wrote:

The amount of professional soldiers in the Russian army is supposed to be definitely more than 200000. If what you're saying is true, then that means that Russia has committed all of its combat capable troops, because conscripts aren't combat capable. They're mainly capable of noncombat support and menial labor.

Yes, conscripts can always find things to do in the rear echelon, believe me I know that first hand

What I am talking about is realistic numbers of kontraktchiki that can be sent to the front without compromising whole regional security and not to mention, regulary rotated with fresher. This can be big advantage over-exhausted Ukrainian units.  

I think Russia has around 400k+ of professional soldiers. If I am correct, airforce, air defence and other "sophisticated" branches are fully staffed by professionals as conscripts don't have enough time to learn to operate such systems, not to mention career opportunities that are only available for contract soldiers are totally not interesting/rewarding for conscripts. So to think, 120k deployed (if that's correct in the first place) is already a large chunk as there are more threats for Russia than Ukraine, and professional soldiers, for better or worse, are the backbone of the Russian army. Nothing to do with conscripts not being combat capable, just the way that Russia doesn't want to repeat bad Afghanistan or Chechnya experiences, conscripts are still very useful in defense.

All I am saying, Russia is not in the same position as US. They bring millions of own/allies and auxiliary troops into any fucking conflict. Not simping for US, just saying that they always advantage in numbers against their foes. Never did they face peer or close to peer adversary that didn't collapse during the first weeks of onslaught.

If 200000 is all that Russia can deploy, no wonder that its advancing so slowly. At this rate, 200000 isn't enough for Donbass and Kharkov, of Ukraine, let alone chernigov, Sumy, Odessa, Nikolaev or Dnepropetrovsk.


What regional threats? Any encroachment on Russian territory in the east will be met with nukes.

Also what will be the consequences if Russia officially declares war in Ukraine? No one's biying "SMO", everyone believes it's war.

limb wrote:

If 200000 is all that Russia can deploy, no wonder that its advancing so slowly. At this rate, 200000 isn't enough for Donbass and Kharkov, of Ukraine, let alone chernigov, Sumy, Odessa, Nikolaev or Dnepropetrovsk.


What regional threats? Any encroachment on Russian territory in the east will be met with nukes.

Also what will be the consequences if Russia officially declares war in Ukraine? No one's biying "SMO", everyone believes it's war.

The number of deployed troops seems quite adequate for the task at hand.
Also I am quite certain nobody here knows the actual numbers, that would be sensitive information.
Plus, I am also quite certain nobody here knows the rate of progress the Russians are aiming for.

What I do know is that Russia could turn Ukraine into and ashtray in less than an hour if they wanted to.

PapaDragon wrote:

mnztr wrote:...
I don't see how any weapon that can fire a 155mm projectile can be worthless...

Alright, I just googled this fabled M777 and it turns out it's just a fuckin' howitzer, are you fuckin' kidding me with this shit?

People have been whining about it like it's a fuckin' railgun or something

Yeah, a howitzer will change course of this war, Jesus Christ what a bunch of retards...

Ukrainians also got a gutted version too, it's missing a ballistic computer.