Day 27 of Russia’s war on Ukraine dawned with Kiev under curfew due to the threat of more Russian shelling, Mariupol in dire straits despite additional civilian evacuations the day prior, and Russia now firmly in control of the land corridor between Donbas and Russian-occupied Crimea, completely blocking Ukraine’s access to the Sea of Azov. 

This was confirmed by the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, as reported by Ukraine’s national news agency Ukrinform this morning. The Sea of Azov, of course, is a northern extension of the Black Sea. The Russians already captured Berdyansk, which like the larger Mariupol is an important port on the small sea’s northern coast. The Ukrainian city of Melitopol is situated between Berdyansk and the Crimean peninsula and is now also under Russian military occupation. 

Even though the besieged city of Mariupol has refused a Russian demand to surrender, the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia now refers to the Black Sea port in the past tense. “It was the tenth-largest city in Ukraine,” the entry reads, and “is now a destroyed city.” 

While there may be a degree of truth to that assessment, it is also premature: Thousands of people remain in Mariupol and the fact that it is still coming under Russian bombardment would indicate that the city does, in fact, still exist. The outlook for Mariupol is undeniably bleak, however, with much of it now unrecognizable after the extensive Russian bombardment. 

The AP reported that Mariupol officials said on March 15 that at least 2,300 people had died in the siege, with some buried in mass graves, and that while there has been no official estimate since then, the number is feared to be far higher after six more days of bombardment. Chances are, though, that Moscow would not have demanded surrender from a city that wasn’t, even in greatly reduced form, still there.

Consider that just this morning, the British defense ministry tweeted: “Despite heavy fighting, Ukrainian forces continue to repulse Russian attempts to occupy the southern city of Mariupol.”

Robust Ukrainian resistance there and elsewhere could yet change the Kremlin’s calculus in its prosecution of a military campaign that has already resulted in thousands of senseless casualties on both sides. 

In the latest example, following a fierce battle on Monday, the Ukrainian army has forced Russian troops out of Makariv, a strategically important suburb of Kiev, Sky News reported. One of the top Ukrainian negotiators and an aide to President Zelensky, Mykhaylo Podolyak, told the BBC that Ukraine’s resilience is causing Russia to “more adequately assess the situation” of the war as it nears the one-month mark. Mr. Podolyak said that the change in perception is helping to encourage a dialogue between the two sides, but added that any decision on a peace agreement will be made between the Ukrainian and Russian leaders. 

For his part, Mr. Zelensky says he is prepared to compromise on Ukraine’s bid to seek NATO membership in exchange for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops, and security guarantees, Sky News reported today. He also said that the status of the disputed territories of Crimea and two self-declared republics in Donbas could be up for debate and a possible referendum, and that he is ready to meet President Putin for direct peace talks “in any format,” France24 reported this morning.

If Wikipedia has some fine-tuning to do, some Ukrainians might want to give TikTok the toss. Ukrainian authorities have detained a Kiev man for sharing a video showing Ukrainian military vehicles parked near the Retroville shopping mall in the city that Russia destroyed in a late-night attack on March 20, killing eight people, Kyiv Independent reported. 

“I did not intend to cause damage, nor did I do it on purpose, I saw the tanks and weapons coming into the mall, I was impressed and uploaded it to TikTok,” the man reportedly said. According to a video posted online by the Ukrainian intelligence service, the man admitted that he uploaded the video to TikTok on February 24, meaning that what might have been one of Kiev’s biggest military secrets could have been known to the Russians for several days ahead of the destructive attack.

Kiev’s mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said that “almost 300 people, including 16 children, have suffered from Russian shelling of our city. Many people have been hospitalized. Sixty-five civilians, including four children, have been killed.” Mr. Klitschko said that “Russian invaders continue shelling Kyiv as their plan to quickly capture the capital failed,” according to Ukrinform. 

There’s nothing like a war to switch the national sport of finger pointing into overdrive. Under the rubric of “news analysis,” Los Angeles Times runs this headline: “Trump delayed weapons to Ukraine and praised Putin. Did that trigger war?” It probably didn’t, but it is certainly not out of left field for a left-leaning newspaper to remind its readers that “Trump in 2019 threatened to hold up weapons deliveries to Ukraine — caught even then in a simmering war with Russian proxies — unless Zelensky helped him dig up political dirt on rival Joe Biden.” 

We know where Los Angeles Times is going with that, but some might ask, what has Mr. Trump got to do with it? In an interview with the Sun, the editor of the journal Liberties, Leon Wieseltier, said that today’s conflict in Ukraine “began with Obama. It was he who opened the vacuum that Putin rushed in to fill, and who was content to be a bystander to Putin’s theft of Crimea and slow degradation of Ukraine.”