Andreas Kluth, Columnist

Mariupol Could Be the Thermopylae of the 21st Century

The strategic port city in eastern Ukraine could join the list of the most tragic but courageous last stands.

April 21, 2022 at 5:00 AM UTC

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

The destruction of Mariupol.
Photographer: Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images.

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Remember Azovstal. Some phrase like that could soon take the part of “Remember the Alamo” in Ukraine’s heroic war of self-defense against Russia.

Azovstal is a giant steel plant in Mariupol, the city in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces are pounding into submission and, in effect, extinction. In it, a couple of thousand Ukrainian troops, sheltering a smaller number of civilians, are holding out. The Russians first tried to bomb them out, and may now try to starve them out.