Urban warfare is grueling and intensive. For people to expect Mauripol to fall quickly have to understand this isn’t irregular jihadist insurgents who only have ak’s, rpgs and light machine guns. Russia is facing down a peer who has a well trained and equipped army in a city. They have advanced weapons like manpads and atgms. These benefits the defenders as they can inflict as much carnage on the attackers. Making the attackers pay in blood for every city block they take . It was going to be a long fight. From what I’m reading they are clearing every apartment building. Floor by floor, apartment by apartment room by room. Not to mention there is civilians in the midst. They would get a lot of bad will from the citizens if they bombarded the city Grozny/Aleppo style.
The battle of Mauripol as I said before is a preview of the future urban battles of Khariv ,Dnirpo and Odessa etc. These cities are larger and the defenders have time to prepare defenses. That’s why I believe phase 3 will capturing the eastern urban area after destroying the UAF positions in Donbas. This phase will be the longest, most brutal and bloody stage of the war. America would have faced the same problems Russia is facing if they launched a ground invasion of Iran and had to storm major cities like Mashhad, Qoms, Bandar Abbas, etc. The last 30 years has seen urban battles with irregular militants and these were very bloody and intense. This is very different. We haven’t seen urban warfare where the defender is a well trained army armed with manpads and atgms. Last time a military faced this was the US during the battle of Hue. And that lasted a month. Realistically speaking this war may end in the summer.
