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Radio War Nerd #325 — Modern Urban Warfare: Marawi, Raqqa, Mosul, Mariupol (Patreon)

Published:
2022-04-12 19:12:56
Edited:
2022-04-12 20:20:28
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: April 7, 2022

With the battle for Mariupol in its second month, we look back at some other recent examples of urban warfare, focusing on the battles in Marawi, Jenin, Fallujah, Raqqa, and Mosul.

Total time: 1:45:52

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Shfifty_five

Oh man, 2022 me could not even fathom the reactionary retardation that will become "discourse" on Twitter. Even for the core of a dying global empire, what the fuck? Is there just a large class of people that are dumb, evil, and beyond saving?

etienne

been waiting on this one for yyyyyyears lol

Bradley Mayer

And they used white phosphorus rounds at Fallujah, basically chemical WMD.

Adam Cassidy

please please bring back putting the time in the description where you stop the takes and start with the history

Jason Thompson

Re: the lack of urban warfare paintings, you are 100% right it is considered unglamorous, but also buildings are hard to draw. Empty fields! An illustrator’s dream!

Ross Kiro-Ward

This is getting ridiculous guys. Yes, just like everyone else you called the invasion incorrectly. We all did. Now all we get is absolute belief in every western narrative about what’s happening in Ukraine from this podcast. I’m not the only one perplexed by this, just read the comments that are starting to come in. We’re not asking for a pro-Russian view, but if all we wanted was the western side of things we would stick to the mainstream news that is blasted at us everyday. I have heard zero pushback from Gary on any of Mark’s takes - this is getting bizarre.

Robert Rowe

What a difference a week makes. I watched video of a bunch of marines in Mariupol surrendering this am. THEY don't have to worry about getting executed & are behaving like sane professionals who know they have 0 chance of winning or even holding out untill relieved. The Azov who survived last night's attempt at a break out in a convoy of military vehicles + civilian trucks & cars painted up with counterfeit "Zs" are back to hiding in the basement at the steel mill. While the Russians pump the basement full of water with all the local fire trucks they could commandeer.

ATH409

As westerners ourselves the only sources we have are going to be from the west. All you can do really is say your thoughts on what western media is currently saying. No one really knows anything, and RWN has made it clear they aren’t sure either. I don’t think that means they’re trusting completely in western narratives.

ATH409

It’s coming to a close. More than a thousand surrendered today. That’s huge. There’s no way there’s more than a couple hundred left at most.

Robert Rowe

Respectfully: If my comment re: Teenaged Victoria Nuland made less than an hour ago was beyond the pale and was removed by the almighty Exile censor, I can handle that. It's your place, your rules. If it disappeared for reasons other than Mark or John axeing it, we all may have a problem.

J P 3

Big open question is how Russia will treat Ukranian marines. It is far from given that all of the soldiers will be treated consistent with Geneva conventions. Given the reputation of the Russian military, I think it's doubtful that Russia observes Geneva conventions even in its treatment of its own military. Hazing and abuse are routine They have treated conscripts from the regions and the DNR as cannon fodder. Doubtful that life will be great for Ukranian POWs.

theSmokingGun

What really confuses me though is that the narrative that Russia is losing or doing some mass retreat from Kyiv is rather recent if I understand correctly? But as recently as this financial times article, it sounds like this was being planned well in advance: https://www.ft.com/content/7b341e46-d375-4817-be67-802b7fa77ef1 The article says they were considering pulling out of the northern front to facilitate good faith at the peace talks in exchange for Ukraine considering a neutrality agreement. And in fact, by the end of last month the US was leaking to the US press that they believed that their offer to withdraw from the northern front around kyiv was simply a ruse: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/blog/ukraine-russia-war-live-updates-delegations-arrive-peace-talks-n1293490 I mean which is it? Are they pulling out of Kyiv because of a peace negotiation and its niave to believe they will hold up their commitments at the peace table? Or are they retreating in utter shame? It feels like it can't be both.... two weeks is a long time in a war I guess. But its not like we've suddenly learned in this last two weeks any sort of indication that Ukraine was getting the upper hand in regards to like air superiority.

James Whale

Agree with yall on most points here . The detail was interesting and helpful

ATH409

Judging from how Ukraine is treating their POWs, it can’t be much worse.

Ross Kiro-Ward

I agree Robert, there have been instances of Ukrainian troops surrendering twice because even after being captured and sent home by Russian troops (they have to sign saying they won’t fight in the conflict anymore) they’re are rounded up and sent back to the front by Ukrop. They then surrender AGAIN and want to stay as POW’s because they don’t want to fight anymore. I find it amazing how I can find this stuff out but apparently it’s too difficult for RWN.

ATH409

Robert, your comments are likely being deleted because Patreon has very strict spam detection. It’s happened to me many times. Long comments, and comments that come soon after others you make, are often deleted.

theSmokingGun

In fact, Mr. ATH409, your reply to my own comment seems like it won't show up. I got a notification for it. But its not there...

Ander Pierce

Russia made the (face saving?) claim that the Kiev attack was a diversion, my personal hunch is that Russia realized they were a bit overextended and so shifted operational goals from Kiev to the East where they have a stronger potential advantage, with the looming encirclement of Ukrainian forces.

theSmokingGun

Did the russians make that claim or is American media saying that is something the russians are claiming? And if the language you're using is exact, is it not a strategic decision to withdraw from a region if there is a conversation regarding that withdrawal at the peace deal? Is diplomacy not strategic? I'm just asking, what has changed between now and the financial times article? Why has the story changed from "theyre not going to hold faithful to their peace talk commitment to leave the region" to "they're leaving the region in utter shame"? I'm not saying nothing has changed between now and the financial times article being published. Maybe I'm just ignorant. But like did the peace talks break down, and they're pulling out of the region regardless of the peace talks breaking down because they can't sustain that front? Or like did Ukraine alter the balance of power in the region in some way? Both narratives cannot be true as they exist independently. There needs to be other information I'm missing or the American media is just lying. A month ago, the russians announced they were pulling out. Half a month ago the US said that was a russian lie, and in fact, russia was going to increase operations in the region. Now they're retreating??? My gut tells me the American media is just jerking us around in any which way that makes the russians look worst.

ATH409

Exactly. Mark brings up a good point when he notes that it’s peculiar how Russia tried to play off the withdrawal as strategic when it seemed they were so heavily invested in the area. However, many important questions about this notion come to mind. 1. Why was there no significant resistance during the withdrawal. Why was it so “clean”, without any real issues. It’s not like the Russians were retreating from huge Ukrainian counter-attacks grinding them down and pushing them back. The frontlines there did not change significantly at all, in fact, they were relatively quiet for weeks before the announcement of withdrawal happened. Maybe it could be that the Russians were stagnating against Ukrainian defense and couldn’t push forward, but like I said, there weren’t any significant Russian attempts at advancement for around a couple weeks before the withdrawal announcement. 2. There are still Russian and Belorussian troops at the border, seemingly in an effort to keep some AFU forces tied up there. The war nerd said this was more typical strategy of a diversionary force. Well, they’re still doing that. 3. To your point about western medias confusion. It seems that western media had no real idea as to what was going on in the Kiev front, I don’t really trust when they try to say what Russias goals there were. Among the contradictory articles of if the withdrawal was even real or not, there was also the infamous “40 mile convoy” that other than some blurry satellite images, had no significant proof of existing. 4. Russia is operating with a smaller force in Ukraine that the AFU. It doesn’t seem logical that Russia would think they could take Kiev with such a small force. But maybe they did, we don’t know, maybe Russians are just stupid and don’t know what they’re doing. The only real conclusion I can come up with, is that no matter what, this invasion is a “massive failure” or “massive success” completely dependent on what you think the goals are. This is why I think western media is trying very hard to push narratives like “Russia thought they could win in 3 days or 2 weeks” which there isn’t any actual evidence anywhere that Russia planned to be finished with the war in 2 weeks let alone 3 days. Also, they’re very adamant that you believe Russias goal is complete annexation of Ukraine. They know this isn’t what Russia wants, but they want you to believe it because if Russia comes anywhere short of that imaginary goal then it would seem that the war was a complete failure. No matter what happens, Russian tanks rolling through Kiev, through Lviv, hell, through Warsaw. There is no possible way western media will ever say this operation was a success.

ATH409

Yep, had the same issue, it should be there now.

J P 3

The claim that the withdrawal was a "good faith" measure is what many took to be absurd. Russia did what it needed to do in order to preserve what remained of its military force in the north. What Ukrainians or anyone else wanted was irrelevant. Putin is dictating terms to the Ukrainians, as he has been throughout this invasion. As has been noted by both sides the terms of any settlement will likely first need to be settled on the battlefield. Prior to the announcement by the Russians in Turkey of the withdrawal, the Russian forces had lost control of territory to the west, and east of Kiev, and lines of supply to Hostomel were in the process of being cut off. The reason that people don't buy the "diversion" claim either is that the Russians committed significant forces and used some of their most elite units in an effort to take the Ukrainian capital (e.g. VDV 331st in Hostomel, 4th Guards Tank Division in Trostyanets). The way that these units were supported (or not supported), also indicates that there was clearly a gross miscalculation by the Russian political leadership about the kind of resistance that they were likely to face. e.g. sending unsupported Rosgvardiya units in a mad dash to the capital, really only makes sense if the assumption is that Ukrainian resistance will be minimal and that the next phase of the war is going to be a clean-up, policing type operation. If the military objective was "actually" to just seize control of land in the east and destroy the Ukranian army in the region, Putin et al almost certainly could have achieved that objective more easily and at a lower political cost, if they had completely forgone the invasion of the north towards Kiev. Now, they are trying to achieve the same objective minus 20% of the fighting force, minus some of the most elite units that existed at the start of the war, minus at least couple hundred junior and senior officers, while having simultaneously rehabilitated the credibility of U.S./UK intelligence agencies and revived NATO. They are also going to have to rebuild offensive military capacity and engage in an offensive war under the pressure of new sanctions. In terms of just the conquest of land, if Russia ultimately moves to a full mobilization, it may be able to seize and hold a significant part of Ukraine the same way that the U.S. occupied Iraq. Whether it's a success or not, why would that kind of objective be desirable for anyone other than Putin and his inner circle?

Doug Cartel

one of the weird details about this new war, from what I heard, is that the initial russian offensive was made up of a mishmash of battalions drawn from all over. Instead of keeping battalion groups together, the force was amalgamated by taking one BN from here, another from there, this one and that one etc etc. No idea why you would do that unless you had a really dumb idea of how the army works, or if you think the guys standing guard at the border are enough to win the war.

etienne

spitballing here but at first everybody thought it was a training exercise, would it have made sense in that context to mix and match units?

David Andrews

Good episode guys. I never gave this aspect of combat enough thought.

radiowarnerd

I think Mark's point that invasion is the crime is important here. It's just not probable that any invasion will be clean. And when there's stubborn resistance, as there clearly has been in Ukraine, the invading force will get angry and tired and you will see more atrocities. That applies to all invasions.

Doug Cartel

yeah, and to the media putin was initially talking about a peacekeeping operation just in donbass before pivoting to a multi-front invasion, so I have no clue where impulsiveness ends and half-assed planning begins.

Doug Cartel

to more directly answer the question though, I would have to find out what, if there even was, the plan for training, because BTGs are typically 3 or more and you train how you fight, so training in a mix n match kind of way would have to be a very rare and special occasion, just from a logistical point of view.

Robert Rowe

Nope, still missing. Pitty I didn't save a copy-

Robert Rowe

According to the below, Victoria Nuland (Nudelman) (Kagan) got her ass whupped by another (female, teen aged) camp counselor at a Ukranian children's camp when she was a teen for disrespecting and laughing at the children. If the below is Russian propaganda, OUTSTANDING! If it's true (and was a formative experience for her?) It's horrible to think how many deaths that summer camp incident may have lead to. (I shall post the links separately in case THAT was the trigger for censorship.) ----- “It happened in 1982. I worked as a children’s camp guide (Russian: pioner vozhataya) at Molodaya Gvardia in Odessa. Sorry to say, but I had a huge fight in which blood was drawn, with one American girl. She was also a camp guide who came from the US as part of an exchange program. I once caught her entertaining herself by throwing semechki in the dirt under her feet and laughing when little Ukrainian kids picked up and ate these dirty semechki. I remembered forever the name of that b*tch. She was called Vicky. For that fight I received a public Komsomol reprimand and they threw me out of camp. Earlier today, I read with great surprise in Nuland’s bio that she worked in 1982 in Odessa’s Molodaya Gvardia as pioner vozhataya, being part of the exchange program, and that her impressions of the USSR were of the most negative kind. I always thought I did the right thing giving her that thrashing. I haven’t regretted it then and don’t regret today. Not enough though; should’ve given her more.”

mt

Scott Ritter makes a valid point to all this: he doesn't have access to Russia's game plan. The states objectives were denazification, recognition of Krim and restructure the security order in Europe. Shouldn't all military movements be measured against that as long as we haven't access to Russia's military plan?

Adam Smeltzer

It's strange hearing Gary say "Hey get out, we told you to get out. Ok our job is legally done" when the Russians then flattened the Kramatorsk train station killing scores of women and children who had GOTTEN OUT

radiowarnerd

I described the 'Get out' command on the show as legalistic, using that term as a pejorative. In my mind, at least, legalistic excuses are among the deadliest. That said, it's not clear who fired that missile. It seemed odd from the beginning. Why would Russian troops write 'For the children'? No Russian children have been killed in this war AFAIK.

Mark Ames

You're either deliberately misrepresenting what he said, or you just didn't listen. He was condemning the hypocritical pseudo-legalism of war rules (practiced by Russians, Americans, Israelis, etc) in which you indemnify yourself from war crimes by going through the motions of telling civilians you plan to bomb to leave town — and then bombing them knowing they couldn't all leave in time.

Mark Ames

Although we normally see our job as defending Ms Nuland's honor with white gloves & dueling single-shot pistols, in this case, sadly, we had nada to do with it.

Robert Rowe

I believe you would need some additional equipment to defend Ms. Nuland's honor... Such as a microscope to verify its presence.

CR

There are tons of urban warfare scenes in comic books and graphic novels, and buildings are never trouble for those artists.

CR

Twitter suspending RWA has really solidified how powerful and ubiquitous the censorship regime is. Seeing right-wingers, the most gullible losers, think Elon Musk is going to be their savior and the savior of free speech (Twitter will vaporize all pro-labor content) makes it clear that no one is saving us.

CR

The only country's military that I associate with writing shit on their missiles is ours.

Jason Thompson

Depends on which comics? I always think of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball where he said in an interview that he always tried to draw fight scenes in uninhabited wilderness so he didn’t have to draw as many backgrounds. 😂 (of course most manga artists just make their assistants draw them)

Lionel Boyd Johnson

I'm glad they mentioned the depleted uranium in widespread US military use. I really don't understand how the US has the nerve to point the finger at anyone regarding war crimes or chemical weapons for that alone. Do a search on "Fallujah birth defects" if you ever want to see the real horrors of the Iraq war still visited upon innocents. Then listen to the war hawks on the Sunday talk shows calling for NATO intervention, and try not to vomit.

Edward P Slocomb

Mariupol gets a lot of press, but very little of the fighting in Ukraine overall has been urban warfare -- you might call it suburban at best. What's striking about this invasion is that is precisely the sort of war that The War Nerd told us (and I for one believed) would never happen: columns of armor (and everything else in your Jane's guides) battling it out over flat terrain on the Eastern Front. Saying "we got it wrong" about the run-up to the war and short-term predictions is boring -- everyone else got it wrong, too, including western institutions (they thought Ukraine would fall in four days). There's a much bigger and more interesting "we got it wrong" here: this wasn't supposed to be possible. The people counting tanks and plotting out artillery logistics on sand tables were supposed to be dinosaurs -- clown dinosaurs, even -- we all laughed and laughed at them, and yet now, somehow, they've got the war they always wanted. It'll take a long time to sink in, lord knows, but I hope some day we'll get to hear a long and thoughtful discussion of how and why The War Nerd got THAT wrong.

Adam Loeb

There’s a book mark mentioned once or twice a few episodes ago about Gorbachev and the mistakes he made and how it lead to the collapse. I’ve tried looking for it but there’s a few out there and want the get the right one.

Robert Rowe

If the past is the key to the future? ----- HISTORY Alexander Pushkin: And, Frankly, You Are Hating Us In 1831 Alexander Pushkin wrote ODE TO DEFAMERS OF RUSSIA. It was his response to some voices in the French parliament calling for armed intervention on the side of Polish insurgents against the Russian army (up to 1917 Poland was part of Russia). In the poem Pushkin explained why the quarrels between Slavs must be decided between Slavs themselves. He called on Europeans not to interfere and made it very clear why they hate Russia. True as it ever was. Enjoy reading and make your own opinion about it. What’s that you’re trumpeting about, calumniators? How come you threaten us with excommunication? What has enraged you? Lithuanian unease? Forget it: this is Slavic beef among their kindred, Domestic ancient squabble, fate has long since figured, A puzzle, you don’t have whatever chance to read. These here contiguous tribes already Have long been feuding up to now; Each party, be it ours or theirs, Bent under gathering storm clouds. Who’ll stand the ground when odds are heavy: A haughty Lech? A faithful Russ? The question is if Slavic floods will ever Blend in the Russian sea or it’ll reduce. Leave us alone: you’re unacquainted With suchlike bloody sacred tablets; This family, domestic feud Is alien, obscure to you; For all you care, Prague or Kremlin; Instead, you’re foolishly entranced By daring courage of a melee – And, frankly, you are hating us… Why? On the grounds that, on the ashes Of blazing Moscow, we refused To buy the power of the brash, who You trembled underneath, subdued? Respond: because we sent the idol, Who’d been predominating kingdoms, to abyss, Thus having paid with our lifeblood For Europe’s freedom, state and peace?.. To hear you talk, you’re tough; then test yourselves in action! As if an aged hero, calm in relaxation, Can’t fix his Ismailian bayonet to a gun; As if the word of Russian tsar is but a trinket Or brawls with Europe any different Or Russians out of form to overcome. As if we’re few; as if from Taurida to Perm reels, From ardent Caucasus to Finnish chilly skerries, From Kremlin, shaken to the core, Up to the walls of quiescent China The Russian soil will never rise up And scintillate with her steel thorns. Then send your bellicose  descendants, Defamers, over to our place! There’s room enough, in Russian grasslands, Among deserving of them graves. -Alexander Pushkin, 1831 https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/03/31/alexander-pushkin-and-frankly-you-are-hating-us/

Lionel Boyd Johnson

I for one am grateful to have had the chance to see it, thank you!

9874123

I think it was "Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union" by Vladislav M. Zubok

Robert Rowe

YOU SAW VICTORA NULAND'S HONOR?!

CR

Mostly western comics. Lots of dystopian and apocalyptic scenes showing mass damage. A lot of superhero comics have been set in cities and so those settings are so ubiquitous they become dismissed. There's the comic DMZ, which is set in war-torn Manhattan. The Judge Dredd comics go back to the dystopian thing.

Lionel Boyd Johnson

LOL, I was originally referring to disappeared post, but I much prefer the idea that I am one of the vanishing few that witnessed the last shred of that blood thirsty ghoul's honor as it finally departed in disgust, even that last thread couldn’t bear witness any longer.

Benke

Pushkin was basically a court poet at that time. He praised the bloodshed Russians caused both in Caucasus and Poland. Typical attitude of a jingoist - when the world's critique falls upon you you cry in pain as a victim. Adam Mickiewicz, polish poet, called Pushin out on his chauvinism and the betrayal of the decembrist ideals in his response "To our friends Muscovites".