More than forty days of siege in Mariupol. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Russian army has been hounding this port on the Sea of Azov, at the cost of considerable devastation. Lhe Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaïlo Podoliak assured Tuesday April 12 on Twitter that the offensive had caused the death of “tens of thousands” of people and destroyed “90% of houses”. Russian forces continue to tighten their grip on Ukrainian soldiers “surrounded and blocked”. Franceinfo explains why taking the city is a strategic issue for Vladimir Putin and the pro-Russian separatists.
To ensure territorial continuity
There was “a kind of logic that Mariupol is on the front line”since it is located “about fifteen kilometers from the contact line between Russia and Ukraine”emphasizes Alexandra Goujon, lecturer in political science at the University of Burgundy.
The port city is located about 350 kilometers northeast of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and some 100 km south of Donetsk, “capital” of one of the two self-proclaimed republics of Donbass, with Luhansk , itself very close to the Russian border. The conquest of Mariupol would therefore allow the Russians to consolidate their territorial gains and connect Crimea to Donbass. “This is the last lock for the Russians to break before the total occupation of southern and eastern Ukraine”summarizes Carole Grimaud-Potter, professor of Russian geopolitics at the University of Montpellier.
Taking Mariupol would also allow the Russians to control about 80% of Ukraine’s coast on the Sea of Azov. She would then reign supreme over this sea open to the Black Sea, which would become an inland sea. “If it succeeds, Russia will not be accountable to anyone, it will be able to place anything there, nuclear submarines for example”explains to AFP Alexei Malachenko, research director at the Institute for the Dialogue of Civilizations.
>> Why controlling the Sea of Azov is a strategic issue for Russia
To deprive Ukraine of an economic lung
Mariupol is the second most important port in Ukraine after Odessa. “The major Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk account for 20% of Ukrainian exports”, recalls on France Culture Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics, before the start of the war. From this port, Ukraine normally exports its steel, its coal, its corn too, in the direction of the Maghreb countries in particular, details the BBC (in English).
“This port is important for Ukraine, because it notably allowed the delivery of wheat and there are large metallurgical factories there”, abounds Alexandra Goujon. One of the most important, Azovstal, was destroyed on March 20, causing “enormous economic losses” for the country, according to a Ukrainian MP. Now, fighting is taking place on the site of this vast ironworks.
The conflict made navigation on the Sea of Azov very complicated. On March 1, six days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nearly 170 ships were stuck at sea, some with cargoes of grain, with immediate effects on world wheat prices. “Before the war, the Russians were already doing everything to limit trade from Mariupol and the arrival of goods”, recalls Alexandra Goujon. Mariupol and its region also have a basement “very rich”particularly in lithium and gold, according to Carole Grimaud-Potter, for whom this area is “a real challenge in terms of resources”.
To obtain a symbolic victory
The capture of Mariupol is also of capital symbolic importance for Vladimir Putin, whose army got bogged down trying in vain to take kyiv, before refocusing its objectives on the “liberation of Donbass”. For the Kremlin, the fall of Mariupol “become its symbol”, assures Alexandra Goujon. At the time of the Crimean offensive in 2014, the city was already coveted by Russian-backed separatist forces. Mariupol had briefly fallen into their hands, before its liberation, in particular thanks to the action of the Azov battalion, a Ukrainian regiment accused of having neo-Nazis in its ranks.
Although it served as a refuge for people displaced after the loss of control of the regional capital of Donetsk, Mariupol was also “considered pro-Russian, with many companies trading with both Ukraine and Russia”ensures the World Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, Director of the Russia-NIS Center at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). “It is considerable to reserve the fate of martyred city to a historically Russophile and Russian-speaking city”she adds.
“Probably they want to make Mariupol an example, a spectrum of what they are capable of.”
Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, researcher at Ifriin the world”
Today, the city is almost destroyed, whereas before the war, it was “dynamic, in full phase of modernization”according to Alexandra Goujon. “The Russians could not enter Mariupol (…) with their tanks so they burned it to ashes”summed up at the BBC (in English)General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander of United Kingdom Joint Forces Command.
To serve the propaganda around the “denazification” of Ukraine
One of the arguments put forward by Vladimir Putin to justify this invasion is the objective of an alleged “denazification” from Ukraine. “This term ‘denazification’ is used with the aim of finding a just cause for this war and to sow doubt in international opinion”, warns Alexandra Goujon. In the Kremlin’s arguments, the Azov battalion is the embodiment of this supposed Nazi control over Ukraine. However, the founding feat of arms of this unit was the liberation of Mariupol. In doing so, the regiment “gained visibility”observes Alexandra Goujon.
Today the Azov Battalion “is considered the defender of the city”, continues the lecturer, even if “the city’s political elites are not far-right at all.” To crush the regiment at Mariupol would then fully return to the enterprise of “denazification” of Ukraine and would allow him to justify this invasion. “Mariupol, because there is the Azov battalion, would be a prize of war.”