The coalition offensive and harrowing ISIS occupation still ravage Mosul. Iraqi medical examiners continue to find mines and bodies in 2023, with reconstruction still ongoing.
Battle of Mariupol 2022
Mariupol is a highly strategic city which lies south of Donetsk Oblast. Due to the city’s valuable ports, the Kremlin has always eyed the town. Russian proxy forces, led by FSB and GRU officers, initially captured the city in 2014 before a brazen Ukrainian counteroffensive retook it.
During the first few weeks of Russia’s total war against Ukraine, Mariupol once again became a major priority for Moscow. During the 2022 full-fledged invasion, the port city was heavily pressured by multiple fronts from the south, east, and north as the Black Sea Fleet and Russian aviation indiscriminately bombed the town.
Ultimately, Russia would succeed in besieging Mariupol, but the defenders, such as the Ukrainian Marines and Azov Battalion, did not go down without a fight. The Ukrainian Armed Forces attempted to supplement supplies into the defenders as they became besieged in the Azovstal Steel Plant. Many who took up the mission knew it was a one-way mission, but still did their duty heroically.
Despite Russia ultimately capturing the city as Ukrainian commanders ordered the Azovstal defenders to stand down, the victory came at a high price for Moscow. The Battle of Mariupol and the lengthy holdout of the Azovstal defenders gave Kyiv the time it needed when Russia could not afford to overextend troops to other theaters in the north.
Today, Mariupol is littered with mass graves, and the civilian death toll could be as low as 25,000 and upwards of 100,000 whenever the city is liberated, and independent monitors can verify the casualties.
Battle of Bakhmut 2023
The Battle of Bakhmut is the most talked about military engagement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Spending over nine months fighting for the city, the Wagner Group, supplemented by Russian paratroopers (VDV) elements, fought grueling combat against the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The battle was for attrition as Wagner recruited heavily from Russian prisons and sent near-endless human wave frontal assaults to exhaust Ukrainian logistics and scope out Kyiv’s artillery positions for counterbattery fire. Bakhmut would resemble Ardennes from WWI in its grueling trench fighting.
Wagner would slowly close in during the battle with great personal slights and anger at the Russian Ministry of Defense for allegedly not supplementing the mercenaries enough. Nevertheless, Wagner persisted, and inner conflicts emerged in Ukraine’s leadership on whether it was worth defending Bakhmut for so long.
Eventually, President Zelensky ordered Ukrainian forces to withdraw to the more fortified heights of Chasiv Yar and Wagner, and the VDV would consolidate positions around the city. Even though the town fell to Russian forces, the inner conflict between Wagner and the MOD would boil over into a failed mutiny that shocked the world and would ultimately lead to the assassinations of the group’s leadership.
Battle of Gaza 2023
On October 7th, 2023, Hamas conducted a bold and brutal terrorist attack, killing at least 1200 Israelis and foreigners and firing off 5000 rockets in one day. In the immediate aftermath, Israel declared war for the first time in 50 years and ignited a scathing aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip to set the stage for a ground invasion.
The ground invasion is ongoing with perilous close-quarters combat reminiscent of Mosul, Fallujah, and Mariupol. Even with Israel inflicting heavy losses on Hamas commanders, the actual fight is hampered due to hostages and the terror tunnels.
After a month of a relentless ground assault, the Biden administration, along with Egypt and Qatar, was able to negotiate a temporary truce to allow Israeli hostages to be released in return for Palestinian “political prisoners,” some of whom have been caught and convicted in acts of terrorism, such as failed suicide bomber, Israa Jaabees.
Nevertheless, Israel’s Defense Minister and Prime Minister both state objectives have not yet been completed, and the war will most likely continue. As large areas of Gaza remain under Hamas’ control, there will be tremendous combat ahead in the Strip.
Urban combat remains one of the deadliest forms of warfare today, and now, in the 2020s, the world is once again witnessing close-quarters combat we thought we would never see again after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Vietnam War.
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