Separatist commander reveals Russian tactics in battle for Azovstal Works

war in Ukraine
Bitter Battle for Azovstal Works: Separatist Commander Reveals Russian Tactics

The shot-up work is reminiscent of the battles in Stalingrad.

© Telegram / PR

In the Azovstal plant, the last defenders of Mariupol entrenched themselves until they were forced to surrender. A Separatist commander tells how the Russian army managed to take the plant.

The Vostock Battalion is among the troops of the Donetsk Separatist Republic (DNR) that were previously involved in fighting in 2014 and 2015. Soldiers of this unit also fought in the city of Mariupol, and also took part in the capture of the Azovstal plant.

Now the founder of the battalion, Aleksander Chodakowski, describes the fighting in a video interview. As you might expect, he follows the aggressors’ point of view, but the video is kept calm in tone. Rather than speaking to a tank in the background, Chodakowski is seated in a modest room reminiscent of a 1960s office.

In the video he reveals a few things about the tactics of the Russian side. He claims that the Azov fighters did not expect to be driven out of the city’s residential areas. But they had expanded their base in the plant. “Otherwise we would have wiped them out in the residential areas and thrown them into the sea,” boasts the separatist commander.

Critical water supply

From the plant, the Ukrainians dug tunnels to the river. “That’s where they got the water from.” But the Russian troops had discovered the beaten paths to the entrances with drones. Then his men began to systematically block and cut off these routes.

“Great tunnels led under the whole work, like arteries”. So the Ukrainian fighters could have moved well. Even wagons could have driven into the big tunnel.

But the separatists were able to observe the places where the Ukrainians climbed into the tunnels. “We mined the entrances or shot at them with precision weapons.” At that time, the Russian Air Force regularly flew attacks over the plant. Heavy thermobaric bombs were also used. Her shockwave crushes deep tunnels and entrances together.

When all lifelines were blocked, the resistance of the Azov fighters grew even stronger, the separatist said. “They even tried to launch counterattacks.” In fact, the position of the defenders was desperate. The front line was far from Mariupol, so breaking out and trying to break through to your own lines was hopeless. The counterattacks could only serve to gain some breathing room on a tactical level.

Then Chodakowski describes the tactics of his battalion. “We forced them to show themselves. Then we knew their firing positions. The human eye doesn’t see everything, but you can’t hide from drones with 28 lenses.” His men sat in front of large monitors and evaluated every spot and pixel.

drones crucial

The last fights took place in the actual factory halls. But the place where the Ukrainians lived and camped was not well suited for defence, the separatist said. And that was on the floor. The bomb craters would have offered some protection, but you couldn’t dig trenches or foxholes or set up firing positions on the concrete floor of the plant. “Even to fire a mortar, the Ukrainians had to go outside, where they were spotted by the drones.”

In the end, the defenders should have surrendered. Exhausted and ragged. “But better that than dying and rotting in the factory. Without a burial to be eaten by dogs and crows.” Then Chodakowski claims that the prisoners were treated well. And repeats the Kremlin narrative that they are “Nazis”. He doesn’t mention that the Ukrainian fighters were cheated. They went into captivity for the most part, as they were promised. But in the meantime they have been stripped of their status as soldiers and prisoners of war in the separatist republic, and they are now to be convicted as alleged terrorists in show trials.

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