"Approaching Mariupol, we realized this was a real major invasion": former POW told about city's defense

He told about this in an interview with Espreso.

"We had an alarm. We all quickly grouped together, took ammunition with us, and the command came that we were going to defend Mariupol. Approaching Mariupol, we already saw columns of smoke, that is, there was already shelling and realized that this was not just an ordinary alarm, but a real major invasion," Ivan recalls.

He shared that the Ukrainian fighters predicted that while they were entrenched in Mariupol, they would be under quite a lot of pressure from the Russians.

"I had thoughts creeping in that our job was to hold out the defense not just of Mariupol, but also of the surrounding areas, the surrounding villages, where Pavlopil, Vodyane, Shyrokyne are, for as long as possible. But there was also the thought that help would come to us, that is, they would not let us be surrounded, and that we would have access, supplies, say, of food and ammunition," he noted.

However, in fact, all this did not work out that way.

"We went to defend Mariupol. And it was clear that the entire concentration of troops went to Kyiv. We were not provided with assistance, because Russia's goal was Kyiv. That is, if we had lost Kyiv in the first days, we would have lost, one might say, everything. And when asssault on Kyiv had already been repelled, it was already a little too late to go to us and create some kind of corridor. It would have been a colossal loss of equipment, a colossal loss of fighters. We were surrounded on March 2. On March 1-2, Mariupol was totally surrounded," the military officer noted.

He said that, since the defense of Mariupol continued all the time, the Ukrainian forces gradually retreated, because the enemy had a significant advantage in the number of fighters and equipment.

"Mariupol was in three rings. These were Azovstal, the right bank and the Ilyich plant. Later it was reduced to two rings, and on April 15 the command came to us to go to Azovstal so that we would not get lost on the right bank, but so that everyone could regroup at Azovstal," noted Ivan Sokal.

• On February 11, the Russian Federation launched a record number of strikes on the Donetsk region since the beginning of the full-scale war.