Mariupol 3.

This is coolbert:

Once more as extracted from an "Institute for the Study of  War" article dated March 19.

"Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment"

By Frederick W. Kagan, George Barros, and Kateryna Stepanenko.

CAPTURE OF MARIUPOL CRITICAL TO FUTURE RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE ACTION UKRAINE? CAPTURE OF MARIUPOL SEEN AS VITAL? 

"The ultimate fall of Mariupol is increasingly unlikely to free up enough Russian combat power to change the outcome of the initial campaign dramatically. Russian forces concentrated considerable combat power around Mariupol drawn from the 8th Combined Arms Army to the east and from the group of Russian forces in Crimea to the west. Had the Russians taken Mariupol quickly or with relatively few losses they would likely have been able to move enough combat power west toward Zaporizhiya and Dnipro to threaten those cities. The protracted siege of Mariupol is seriously weakening Russian forces on that axis, however. The confirmed death of the commander of the Russian 150th Motorized Rifle Division likely indicates the scale of the damage Ukrainian defenders are inflicting on those formations. The block-by-block fighting in Mariupol itself is costing the Russian military time, initiative, and combat power. If and when Mariupol ultimately falls the Russian forces now besieging it may not be strong enough to change the course of the campaign dramatically by attacking to the west."

See previous blog entries the topic Mariupol:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/03/mariupol-2.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/03/mariupol.htm

This situation map tells the story? Mariupol that single-last impediment to a secure over-land Sea of Azov corridor between the Crimea and those areas of southern Ukraine already occupied by Russian troops?

Mariupol indeed is critical!!

coolbert.