Battle of Stalingrad but Paulus – ordered not to surrender by Hitler – did not respond. The German High Command informed Paulus, "Every day that the army holds out longer helps the whole front and draws away the Russian divisions from it." The Germans inside the pocket retreated from the suburbs of Stalingrad to the city itself. The loss of the two airfields, at Pitomnik on 16 January 1943 and Gumrak on the night of 21/22 January, meant an end to air supplies and to the evacuation of the wounded. The third and last serviceable runway was at the Stalingradskaya flight school, which
Timeline of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation accused of treason and a fight ensued over the flagpole. More protesters rallied outside the Sevastopol administration offices. Pro-Russian demonstrators accompanied by neo-Cossacks demanded the selection of a Russian citizen as mayor (which was refused by the city council) and planted Russian flags at city hall; they also handed out leaflets calling for volunteers to a militia and warning that the "Blue-Brown Europlague is knocking." On 24 February, a pro-Russian rally in Sevastopol chose Aleksei Chalyi, a Russian citizen, as mayor. This was controversial because Sevastopol has no mayor as the Chairman of the Sevastopol City State Administration (Governor of