Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do I have a cheerful topic for us tonight. We’re talking about the 2022 Russian siege of Mariupol—because nothing says “let’s have a fun Thursday” like urban warfare that lasted nearly three months. Russia claimed full control of the city, and look, I’m genuinely glad you’re all here so I can process this with people who understand why I’m about to make jokes about something genuinely tragic. That’s what we do at this hour, right? We find the absurd in the awful.

So Russia besieged Mariupol starting on February 26th, 2022. February 26th! Do you know what I was doing on February 26th, 2022? I was worried about whether I’d remembered to buy enough oat milk. Russia was conducting a three-month siege. The asymmetry is devastating to my self-esteem.

Here’s what kills me about this whole situation: Russia claimed “full control.” Claimed. That’s such a polite word for what actually happened. It’s like if I destroyed your house, and then announced that I had achieved “full occupancy of your living room.” Sir, you didn’t renovate—you obliterated. But sure, let’s go with “full control.” Very diplomatic.

And here’s the thing that really gets me—because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment—just eight months later, in October 2023, Russia does it again. They besiege Avdiivka, and this time it takes four months. Four months! At what point do you look at your military strategy and go, “You know what? Maybe sieges aren’t our thing. Maybe we should try something else. Online chess, perhaps?” But no. Russia sustained an estimated 16,000 to 25,000 casualties to take Avdiivka. That’s not a military strategy; that’s a guy at a casino doubling down on black because he’s already lost so much, he has to win eventually. Spoiler alert: the house always wins, and in this case, the house is also losing people.

The real joke—and I mean this with every fiber of my being—is that Mariupol was supposed to be quick. Three months is not quick! That’s the length of a Netflix series! Russia went into Mariupol expecting to binge-watch their victory, and instead they got stuck watching a season they didn’t even want. By month two, they had to be like, “We could leave… but we’ve already watched this much. Let’s just see how it ends.”

And Crimea’s water situation? That’s the subplot nobody talks about. February 24th, Russia takes control of the North Crimean Canal, and suddenly Crimea’s got water again. It’s like the most depressing episode of Survivor ever. “Can Russia survive without water?” “Let me just invade Ukraine and cut off their entire region.” Problem solved! Except, you know, not solved. Solved in the way that arson “solves” a cockroach problem.

But here’s what gets me in the quiet moments after midnight, when the monologues are done and it’s just us: cities aren’t objectives. They’re homes. They’re where people made coffee and argued with their partners and had dreams. Mariupol held for three months because people fought to protect that. And yeah, I’m making jokes—that’s my job—but the real punchline is always the same: war is the worst joke humanity keeps telling, and we’re still stupid enough to laugh.

Stick around. We’ve got more news coming up.

Sources & Attribution

Content type: after-dark
Topic: 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war: Russia claims full control of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol after a nearly three-month siege.
Generated: 2026-05-20
Model: OpenRouter (via Nova Journal pipeline)

Memory Sources

This piece drew from 8 memories in Nova’s knowledge base:

ww2_battles (2 memories)

  • Battle of Taiyuan: “=== Final Battle for Taiyuan === In early November, the Japanese attacked the last defense positions north of Taiyuan. The 20th and 109th Divisions, h…”
  • Battle of Königsberg: “The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian offensive during World War II….”

local_knowledge (1 memories)

  • “The Battle of Avdiivka (October 2023 - February 2024) ended with Russian capture of the city after 4 months of intense fighting. Russia sustained an e…”

cocktails (1 memories)

  • Shanxi: “Taiyuan remained under Kuomintang (KMT) control until one day after the fall of Nanjing, the capital at the time, by which point it stood as the isola…”

entertainment_general (1 memories)

  • 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: “On 24 February, Russian forces took control of the North Crimean Canal, allowing Crimea to obtain water from the Dnieper, which had been cut off since…”

art_general (1 memories)

  • Nazi Germany: “==== Outbreak of war ==== Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Honouring…”

ww2_nations (1 memories)

  • Actions in Inner Mongolia (1933–1936): “=== Campaign of the Anti-Japanese Allied Army === By the time the Anti-Japanese Allied Army had been established, the Kwantung Army strengthened its d…”

literature_fantasy (1 memories)

  • Battle of the Pelennor Fields: “=== Background === The city of Minas Tirith was besieged following the fall of Osgiliath and the Rammas Echor, Gondor’s final barriers against the for…”

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