Pretenses, bad intelligence. now that he s trapped into it, he doesn t know how to get out because he can t simply say, we ve been defeated and go home. he has to claim some kind of victory. what he s hoping for now is to seize more ukrainian land, perhaps along the sea of azov coast where he is on the verge of taking mariupol, even though those defenders continue to hold out. he would love to claim a victory in donbas. what s happening instead is the russians are getting weaker. their losses are catastrophic. they probably lost over 20,000 soldiers and probably over 600 tanks. these are devastating losses, the kind russia has not seen since the early days of world war ii. they re getting weaker. on the other side, the ukrainians are actually getting stronger. they re getting more tanks, more aircraft, more artillery that can outrage the russians right now. the balance is shifting against the russians. their offense in the east is running out of steam. i don t think putin knows what
Win ahead of that key date? i think that is unquestionably the case. it s it s a every russian soldier will understand that. but they will also understand that it s some of these attacks are just suicide attacks. they are aware of the of the incredible casualties that the russians are taking. and by the way, the ukrainians are likely to mount a counterattack of their own on may 9th. so david, you know, the thought of taking mariupol that has been encircle now for weeks on end, if and whenever that happens, would still be a a pretty big strategic price for putin. explain to our viewers, why putin needs this at this stable? well, they they they they are attempting to create a land bridge to occupy crimea, for one thing.
In today's Morning Brief, demining units have found and deactivated more than 50,000 mines and unexploded pieces of ammunition since the beginning of April, when Russian troops pulled out of the areas around Kyiv, Ukraine.
Had done to say that he was successful. what does that look like? we saw when he is pushback from areas in the north that he decided he is going to do what a lot of us thought he would do in the beginning, and that s focus on the donbas region. so that looks like doing what he s doing now, in terms of taking mariupol. mariupol is key. once he gets mariupol, he s going to move on to the greater donbas region, and there is a scenario in which he could look at taking mariupol and donbas and annexing those areas, and at least calling this phase of the war a success. you know at this point putin is very frustrated, he has not been able to say he s had a clear and decisive victory. so, once he gets the donbas region, even if he continues to focus on other areas, we anticipate that we will see some rhetoric, some communication out of russia with vladimir putin claiming success. but shawn, what you are just referring to, russia taking some of those regions in the
Effort into mariupol, air strikes, more than ten tactical groups dedicated to that mission of taking mariupol. they have made it bloody and costly to the ukrainians. but on the other side, the ukrainians continue to fight, and it s a big port for them and they re fighting hard for it. it would be foolhardy to guess how long the fighting will go on in mariupol. the ukrainians are still there. explain again why it s so strategic and how big a blow would it be to the ukrainians to lose mariupol? mariupol sits right at the northern edge of that sea just to the south of the donbas