A senior Western intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, warned this week to prepare for a “massive loss of life, especially civilian,” in the coming days and weeks as Ukraine’s war enters a new phase.
“These will be real sieges,” the official said. “They will be almost medieval in their approach. They will separate the cities. They will bomb them until the ground bounces off. And then they will come in and walk street to street. “
If the Russian military uses this tactic to attack the capital Kyiv – a city of nearly 3 million inhabitants – and other densely populated areas such as the Dnieper and Odessa, it will mark a particularly serious turnaround. A million people have already fled the violence in Ukraine.
As the war continues, the conflict may also become less visible. Initially, international journalists closely covered the invasion of Kyiv and other cities that still have electricity, internet and mobile phones. But if Russian forces deactivate local utilities, as they did in Mariupol, developments will become much more difficult to broadcast.
The conquest of Mariupol, Russia’s main target since the outbreak of a separatist war in the east of the country in 2014, will help Moscow complete a “land bridge” from Russian territory to Crimea on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian cities that are less fortified or strategic can avoid such sieges. The Russian military recently captured Kherson, an important economic center on the Black Sea and the Dnieper River, without resorting to the long days of bombing used in Mariupol. However, big cities like Kyiv, which the Ukrainian military is preparing to defend, could be hit – at a great cost to those who remain.
Mason Clark, a leading Russian analyst at the Institute for War Studies, said the Russian military used a similar book in Syria while fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, often targeting civilian infrastructure to boost the city or part of it to capitulate.
“They probably think it’s a more cost-effective way to force these cities to surrender,” Clark said.
The Russian military nearly equaled Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, during the first Chechen war in the 1990s and the second, which began just before Putin became Russia’s president in 2000.
Clark said the goal of the Russian military in Grozny was not just to force Chechen separatists to capitulate, but also to destroy the city itself as a way to put their will in check. It is unclear whether Moscow has the same goals in Kyiv, he said, noting that the Ukrainian capital could suffer comparable damage anyway.
In a statement to the Telegram news service, Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko encouraged residents to believe in the final victory of Ukrainian forces, describing the siege there as “an act of genocide by Russian occupiers against the Ukrainian people.”
Russia has described the invasion as an effort to “denationalize and demilitarize” the country and rescue Ukrainians from a Western-backed government holding them hostage.
Boychenko said Mariupol had emergency services ready to restore electricity and water, but a ceasefire was needed to carry out the work.
“We are not just saying it, we are shouting it, so the international community is hearing our voice about the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe for our city,” Boychenko said on Thursday.
He said talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials on humanitarian corridors have raised hopes that medicine and food will be allowed into the city.
In addition to Ukrainian forces, Mariupol has been a major base for years in the Azov Battalion, a far-right extremist militia that has fought in Ukraine since the separatist conflict began in 2014. These fighters have been a specific target for Russian forces and their separatist representatives. who seek to highlight the existence of far-right groups in Ukraine in order to label the central government falsely as run by neo-Nazis.
In Ukrainian cities, locals have begun building barriers to prevent Russian armored vehicles from entering easily and stocked up on Molotov cocktails and weapons in preparation for urban combat. Advancing Russian commanders are likely to try to avoid city battles as much as possible, for fear that this will lead to large numbers of Russian casualties. The result is likely to be a reliance on air strikes and artillery, in addition to siege tactics, all of which can cause significant civilian deaths.
“I don’t know what the outcome is other than Russia’s ugly victory at the moment,” said Scott Boston, a Russian military analyst at Rand Corp.