way, even if it s just jam radio signals. they call russians in russia and say do you know how poorly this is going for you. everyone is engaged. the problem is they are literally starving. this is a siege, that s what the russians are doing here. again, how long they can hold out, and that s very important. if they do surrender, these forces will be free to go back up. if you want to go back to the ukraine map overall, that will free forces to go up this way. eventually you can surround a lot of ukrainian forces in here. the significance of having this part right here, which is what we re talking about. here is mariupol and crimea. connecting crimea which they seized in 2014 with the donbas, they can consolidate forces and go that way? it s that on the battlefield now. it s also you have a land line of communication between russia and crimea that doesn t require
vessels. they haven t fired on vessels before, but they have been stopping commercial vessels, inspecting, et cetera. so it s been building ever since really you could say for quite a while but i would put it back in april, may. may, really when the russians built a bridge across that strait connecting crimea and russia and, in fact, choking off the ukrainians. trying to make it part of russian territory, in effect here. we did have a reaction today from the administration special representative for the ukraine who tweeted the following, russia rams ukrainian vessel peacefully traveling toward ukrainian port, seizes ships and crew and then accuses ukraine of provocation? it continues to occupy crimea,