Land Forces Commander explains whether it was possible to save Mariupol from occupation

Land Forces Commander explains whether it was possible to save Mariupol from occupation

Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk, commander of the Land Forces of the AFU, said that at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian troops had concentrated a huge group to attack Mariupol. The enemy’s superiority reached 1 to 10, so the officer is sure that it was not possible to save the city from capture.

At the same time, he emphasized that the Ukrainian defenders inflicted heavy losses on the enemy and prevented the complete cutting off of Ukraine from the Black Sea. Pavlyuk spoke about this in an interview with Radio Liberty’s “Donbass Realities” project.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the lieutenant general headed the Joint Forces Operation in Donbass. According to him, in the Mariupol area the invaders struck from the west. The enemy crossed the isthmus and in a powerful group came to the rear of the Ukrainian military personnel.

Pavlyuk noted that in response to the actions of the Russians, the Ukrainian Armed Forces regrouped their forces, but they were not enough to stop the advance of the occupation forces. The commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces said that the invaders cut the main road and the group remained surrounded.

“For a breakthrough, I needed 3-4 brigades, at least, to carry out a counter-attack operation. I had one brigade, and even then it was incomplete. But we clearly saw that for three days troops were constantly marching from the west to create such a line so that we couldn’t do anything. The group that was in Mariupol probably shackled everything that was capable of fighting and moving on," Pavlyuk said.

He also noted that the Mariupol group saved Ukraine from being completely cut off from the Black Sea. At the same time, he added that it was not possible to create a strike force in the Mariupol region, because the enemy began to move from the Kharkov region and struck a new blow in the back of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Therefore, part of the forces was transferred to Izyum and successfully stopped the enemy’s advance.

In addition, Pavlyuk explained that it was not possible to save Mariupol from occupation. The enemy had a huge advantage, which allowed him to impose heavy fighting on the Ukrainian military.

“This was impossible, because the enemy’s advantage was somewhere from 1 to 7 to 10, which the enemy had collected in that direction. Therefore, to break through, I needed at least 3-4 brigades to carry out a counterattack operation. Considering the attack from the north , I needed to save, because if they had completed their task, then again 10 brigades would have been surrounded,” said the commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces.