For Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, researcher and director of the Russia/NIS Center of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), there was thus “a logistical facility” to attack the port city, due to its location “near the contact line between Russia and Ukraine”

Moreover, taking Mariupol would allow the Russians to control around 80% of Ukraine’s coast on the Sea of ​​Azov, further isolating the country from the rest of the world.

In practice, however, “Russia already controls this sea, since it controls the only entrance: the Kerch Strait”, underlines Igor Delanoë, deputy director of the Franco-Russian Observatory, to Agence France-Presse (AFP). After the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the latter had built a bridge, in May 2018, spanning the strait, connecting the Crimean peninsula to Russian territory and thus surrounding the Sea of ​​Azov.

If Russia finally took control of the Sea of ​​Azov, “She won’t have[it] accountable to no one [et] She can put anything in it. concludes Alexei Malachenko, director of research at the Institute for the Dialogue of Civilizations, also quoted by AFP.

• Junction between annexed Crimea and pro-Russian separatist territories

Mariupol is, moreover, on the path of the armed forces rising from Crimea, and on that of the soldiers who come from the separatist territories – whose independence the Russian president recognized before the start of the invasion of Ukraine. .

Taking Mariupol would then allow the Russians to make the land junction between the two Ukrainian regions controlled by Moscow. The port city is, moreover, located in the oblast of Donetsk, territory which the pro-Russians claim, but which they have not succeeded in taking entirely.

From these separatist regions of eastern Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula – or even to Odessa – this territory retaken along the Sea of ​​Azov and the Black Sea would also allow Vladimir Putin to recreate New Russia, a territorial subdivision of the Russian Empire at the end of the XVIIIand century.

Russians “would thus have liked to push this junction to Transnistria [région à cheval sur le sud-ouest de l’Ukraine et la Moldavie]develops Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean. But, with the setbacks suffered by the Russian army, that no longer seems feasible to me.

Mariupol, industrial and commercial lung

Due to its location by the Azov Sea, Mariupol was also an important industrial and commercial center before the war. If Russia took control of it, it would stifle a large part of the Ukrainian economy and contribute to further asphyxiate the population. The Russians have moreover “virtually wiped the city off the map” notes Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean.

[...]

A highly symbolic Russian victory

While Russian troops are struggling on the ground, the capture of Mariupol would be a powerful symbol, likely to motivate exhausted soldiers who can then be redeployed to other fronts. “Probably they want to make Mariupol an example, a range of what they are capable of” adds Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean.

• Revenge on a Russophile city that had already repelled Moscow

This is not the first time that Mariupolitains have defended their city against pro-Russian separatist forces. They had already taken them back in 2014, after the port city had briefly fallen into their hands. The capture of Mariupol would thus constitute a painful setback for the Ukrainians, with an emphasis on revenge for the Russians.

[...]

Beyond the coast, Moscow would also take control of this sea, open to the Black Sea, making it "a Russian inland sea," explains the researcher.