On February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine, they quickly targeted several key cities. One of those was the industrial hub of Mariupol. For three months, Ukrainian forces defending the city held out, until they were told to surrender on May 20. While thousands were taken into captivity, many whom are still being held as prisoners of wars, at least one civilian fighter, a man named Gennadiy, survived and remained in the city. In this episode of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project Podcast, John Spencer tells the story of the man who fought the Russian invaders at the Battle of Mariupol, was captured and tortured, resisted, escaped, and survived in the rubble of the city for nine months, before he was rescued in an operation by Ukrainian special operations forces.
In urban warfare, the enemy, terrain, population, and tactical problem can change faster than a military’s formal lessons-learned process. Armies cannot wait until a...
For more than a year now, the world has watched as Ukrainian cities have become unrecognizable, transformed by the destruction of the ongoing war...
This episode features a conversation with Col. Joseph Hilbert, who recently completed a two-year assignment as the commander of the Operations Group at the...