To March On Mariupol, Ukrainian Marines First Have To Break Urozhaine

Rolling through half-hearted rocket barrages and barreling right over Russian trenches, the vanguard of a division-size Ukrainian force—which includes most of the country’s marine corps—has entered Urozhaine in southern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

Urozhaine, a settlement with a pre-war population of a thousand, is the next link in a chain of objectives leading south along the Mokri Yaly River Valley toward Russian-occupied Mariupol on the Black Sea coast.

Two months into their long-anticipated counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces still need to advance nearly 50 miles to reach Mariupol. For a counteroffensive corps that’s advancing just a few hundred yards per week, 50 miles is a long way.

But not every mile on the road to Mariupol is equally foreboding for the attackers. Russian fortifications are thickest around Urozhaine and also around Heorhiivka, five miles south of Urozhaine. All that is to say, Urozhaine is one of at least two strongpoints the Ukrainians should break in order to begin a determined march on Mariupol.

Which helps to explain why the Ukrainian armed forces have concentrated some of their best brigades along the Mokri Yaly axis, including all four front-line brigades in the new Ukrainian marine corps.