[Goose]

Thanks, Goose. I appreciate your thoughts. It’s certainly plausible and certainly more plausible than my hypothesis.

By the way, the Russians blew up all three bridges across the Donets river from Sieverodonetsk. I guess the goal is to trap the Ukrainian troops and civilians in the city as they reduce it to rubble, and I imagine they presumed that if they didn’t do it, the Ukrainians upon their retreat.

Still, it does make the capture of the remaining portions of Sieverodonetsk tougher since retreat is not going to be an option, and I’m guessing after Mariupol, neither will surrender.

BC

It is my understanding that the Russians destroyed the bridges by shelling, i.e. they are not physically there (yet). This means that while Ukraine can still retreat (the river is falling, you can wade across) it will not be possible to easily bring out anything/anyone that requires truck/motor vehicle transport. In this case. being leg infantry has it's advantages. Equally importantly. supplies cannot be brought in by truck either. This may not really be that different, as the Russians were regularly shelling the roads anyway, but if the bridge was there trucks could chance it. Of course, Ukraine can build pontoon/Bailey bridges too. Probably not worth it as they would just get shelled out of existence.

UPDATE: https://www.yahoo.com/news/bridges-ukrai...53735.html basically confirms the above. However, it seems the Russians are on the river bank or soon will be.
 
At one time Ukraine supposedly had 20,000 troops inside the pocket. Presumably, as the pocket contracted most of these troops retreated to the other side of the river. Zelenskyy seemed to be laying the groundwork with the public that they would do that. As he has said, Ukraine needs live fighters, not dead hero's. Lets hope they pull out as much as they can. Politically, it will be difficult. The home guard may refuse to leave. I certainly hope they got all their 155 mm artillery and any (other than MANPAD) anti-air assets across the bridges before they went. If not, that is a BIG error.

[Goose]

Thanks, Goose. I appreciate your thoughts. It’s certainly plausible and certainly more plausible than my hypothesis.

By the way, the Russians blew up all three bridges across the Donets river from Sieverodonetsk. I guess the goal is to trap the Ukrainian troops and civilians in the city as they reduce it to rubble, and I imagine they presumed that if they didn’t do it, the Ukrainians upon their retreat.

Still, it does make the capture of the remaining portions of Sieverodonetsk tougher since retreat is not going to be an option, and I’m guessing after Mariupol, neither will surrender.

BC

It is my understanding that the Russians destroyed the bridges by shelling, i.e. they are not physically there (yet). This means that while Ukraine can still retreat (the river is falling, you can wade across) it will not be possible to easily bring out anything/anyone that requires truck/motor vehicle transport. In this case. being leg infantry has it's advantages. Equally importantly. supplies cannot be brought in by truck either. This may not really be that different, as the Russians were regularly shelling the roads anyway, but if the bridge was there trucks could chance it. Of course, Ukraine can build pontoon/Bailey bridges too. Probably not worth it as they would just get shelled out of existence.

UPDATE: https://www.yahoo.com/news/bridges-ukrai...53735.html basically confirms the above. However, it seems the Russians are on the river bank or soon will be.
 
At one time Ukraine supposedly had 20,000 troops inside the pocket. Presumably, as the pocket contracted most of these troops retreated to the other side of the river. Zelenskyy seemed to be laying the groundwork with the public that they would do that. As he has said, Ukraine needs live fighters, not dead hero's. Lets hope they pull out as much as they can. Politically, it will be difficult. The home guard may refuse to leave. I certainly hope they got all their 155 mm artillery and any (other than MANPAD) anti-air assets across the bridges before they went. If not, that is a BIG error.