Russia’s way of conducting urban warfare bodes ill for Kyiv

time that Russian forces fought their way into was the autumn of 1943, when the Red Army crossed the Dnieper river and seized the city from Nazi Germany. On November 4th that year, German defences collapsed and Soviet tanks poured into the Ukrainian capital. Almost 80 years on, Russian armoured forces are back.As the third day of the current war in Ukraine drew to a close, Russia intensified pressure on three population centres: Kyiv, the capital; Kharkiv in the north-east; and Kherson in the south. In all of them, Ukrainian resistance was fierce. A large number of destroyed or abandoned Ukrainian vehicles were visible east of Kherson, though the city was said to be contested still on Saturday evening local time. There was also heavy fighting in Mykolaiv, further west, and just 110km from the key port of Odessa. Russian forces in the south also moved east towards Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov that is claimed by the “People’s Republic of Donetsk”, one of a pair of Russian-backed statelets in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. In Kharkiv, images and videos posted on social-media showed burnt-out Russian howitzers, with shells and cluster-munition casings lying in the street.