It was impossible to save Mariupol from capture. This was stated by the new commander of the Ground Forces, Oleksandr Pavliuk, who was in charge of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in Donbas at the time of the outbreak of the full-scale war.
"We managed to get out (into the city) because we received an attack from the west. After crossing the isthmus, a powerful group came to the rear of our units. We managed to regroup (our forces - UNIAN), but still those forces and means were not able to stop such an armada that came at us. They cut the main road and the group was surrounded. We immediately began to take measures to create a grouping to break through this corridor. I withdrew the 95th Brigade (95th Air Assault Brigade - UNIAN), regrouped it and began to prepare it for a counterattack," Pavliuk said.
According to him, the group that was in Mariupol probably chained "everything that was capable of fighting and moving on."
"In fact, the Mariupol group saved the south from being completely cut off of Ukraine from the Black Sea. We were unable to make a strike, because another group was sent in, which the enemy regrouped and concentrated from the Kharkiv region and struck us in the back again through Izyum. I had to use this brigade to close the gap they found. The brigade did a great job," the general recalled.
He said that the Kharkiv grouping was stopped, while the Russians stopped and started a positional defense.
"Starting from mid-March, we stabilized the line and moved to positional defense. There were no more breakthroughs, no big ones. This allowed us to regroup, replenish our troops and continue to hold the line. Most importantly, it made it possible to bind the enemy's huge forces around the eastern group of troops," Pavliuk said.
In his opinion, it was impossible to save Marupol, because the enemy's advantage was somewhere between 1 and 7, up to 10.
"Therefore, I needed at least 3-4 brigades to make a breakthrough and conduct a counterattack operation. I had only one brigade, and it was incomplete, which I withdrew from the front line," he said.
