The curtain rose on Day 83 of the Russian rampage in Ukraine with a vision of a fallen Mariupol and concerns a similar fate may await other major Ukrainian cities like Mykolaiv and Chernihiv. 

As of Tuesday morning more than 260 Ukrainian soldiers, many wounded, had been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, in a move that appeared to confirm that for now at least, Moscow has definitively overtaken the strategic, once thriving Black Sea port city that over the past months has been reduced to rubble. 

The enormous steel plant had been one of the last pockets of Ukrainian resistance in the city. In remarks that underscored the high emotion of the deterioration of the situation, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said, “We hope to save the lives of our boys. I want to underline: Ukraine needs its Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle.”

A prisoner exchange with Russia is now in the works. Late on Monday dozens of badly wounded Ukrainian soldiers had been evacuated to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk, the Guardian reported. The newspaper quoted Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, as saying that “an exchange procedure will take place” to bring Ukrainian evacuees home. 

An estimated 600 Ukrainian troops were reportedly holed up in the steel plant, the last holdout against unrelenting Russian bombardment of the coveted city. On the Ukrainian side, defense has pivoted to rescue. In a Facebook post, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote: “The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel…. Efforts to rescue defenders who remain on the territory of Azovstal continue.” 

In a briefing, Russia’s defense ministry said, “Over the past 24 hours, 265 militants laid down their arms and surrendered, including 51 heavily wounded.” According to  Russian news agency TASS, the speaker of the Russian Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said that “Nazi criminals” should not be involved in prisoner exchanges. 

Is Mykolaiv Next?

What is devastating to some is victory, however provisional, for others. Barring dramatic developments in upcoming days it appears that Mariupol, or what is left of it, could fly the Russian flag. A further danger is that the Kremlin will be buoyed as it turns more of its guns on another port city not too far away: Mykolaiv, which has a population of 400,000, similar to Mariupol’s before the attacks.

When war broke out in late February Mykolaiv repulsed a Russian attempt to grab it, but its strategic location between Kherson and Odessa makes it a prize the Kremlin covets. In recent weeks Russian forces have stepped up their bombardment of the city, shelling everything from water pipes and hospitals to electricity stations and residential neighborhoods, killing dozens and wounding many more, according to multiple reports.

Mykolaiv’s military spokesman, Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, told the London Telegraph that the Russians “rotate new guys in every fortnight, and when they start, they’re always very enthusiastic, firing lots of bombs.… Then they quiet down when they realize we can locate their artillery and fire back.”

The British daily says that the main battle action is now just east of Mykolaiv, “where the farmlands that lie towards Kherson have become a modern-day Flanders” and “the front line swings back and forth, neither side prevailing.” The city remains vulnerable. At daybreak Monday the Russian unleashed a barrage of missiles toward the center, leveling apartments and causing an unspecified number of civilian injuries. 

While the citizens of Mykolaiv endure daily torment, another troubling development is that the Russian Black Sea submarine fleet put to sea from its base at Crimea last week. The submarines number a half dozen and each is equipped with cruise missiles, potentially far more destructive than the kind of indiscriminate fire lobbed at Mykolaiv to date.

Closer to Kyiv, in the region around Chernihiv, about 3,500 buildings have been destroyed, 80 percent of which have been residential structures, the British ministry of defense says. In its daily update, the ministry said the scale of this damage “indicates Russia’s preparedness to use artillery against inhabited areas, with minimal regard to discrimination or proportionality.” Forecast for civilians, not good: In the coming weeks, Britain said, “Russia is likely to continue to rely heavily on massed artillery strikes as it attempts to regain momentum in its advance in the Donbas.”

Ukrainian Drone Smashes Russian Ship

As this nasty war drags on not all the news is grim for Ukraine, whose army wields not only an invaluable weapon called high morale but also some nifty military bling in the form not just of British-supplied NLAW anti-tank missiles but Turkish-designed Bayraktar TB2 drones. In recent days one of the drones took out a Russian Raptor patrol boat at the tiny but strategic Snake Island in the Black Sea, over which the Russians exert faltering control. 

Black-and-white video released by Ukraine’s military showed the warship exploding after the drone unloaded its missiles, perhaps up to four, from a height of about 15,000 feet. The number of Russian casualties was not immediately discernible from the video.