Russia badly botched its capture of Mariupol, which should have been over much quicker, analyst says

• Ukraine said Monday it was evacuating all troops from its last holdout in the city of Mariupol.
• Thought Ukraine effectively gave up the territory, it extracted a huge price from Russia for it.

Russia's capture of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, following weeks of strident Ukrainian resistance, came at too great a cost, according to Ukrainian officials and experts.

As Russian troops began to take over the city last month, a group of Ukrainian fighters, namely the Azov Battalion, retreated to fight from basement tunnels below the steel works.

At one point, Russian troops were preparing to storm the steel plant, but President Vladimir Putin called off the raid on April 21, calling instead for a blockade "so not even a fly can get through."

Ultimately, it worked. After weeks weathering attacks from Russian troops, Ukraine's military announced Monday it was evacuating the troops, whom it had "performed their combat task."

Although the Ukrainian military did not use the word, the move effectively surrendered the plant to Russia and handed them total control of Mariupol.

One analyst told Insider that the Ukrainians vastly outperformed expectations, "holding out for many weeks longer than was considered feasible."

Though a blow for Ukraine in principle, analysts said that Ukraine forced Russia to pay a disproportionately high price for the city, mostly reduced to rubble in the attacks.

In its statement, Ukraine's military said Russia had to commit 20,000 troops to the steel works, who were then unable to attack other targets in Ukraine.

"Forging the enemy's core forces around Mariupol has given us the opportunity to prepare and create the defensive frontiers on which our troops are still present today and give a decent counterpoint to the aggressor," it said.

"We got the critically needed time to build reserves, regroup forces, and get help from partners."

Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow on the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, agreed.

"It was plainly important to Russia to continue hammering the defenders in the Azovstal complex long after they were surrounded and cut off from any possible relief, as opposed to waiting and starving them out," he told Insider.

"This is one of the many spectacular achievements of the defenders, not only holding out for many weeks longer than was considered feasible, but also in the process tying down numbers of Russian troops that were out of all proportion to the complex's value as a military objective, and therefore making the task of Ukrainian defenders across the rest of the country easier."

"The length of the siege and resource that Russia has committed to it just underline the extent to which the political drivers for the Russian offensive run counter to military common sense," he added.

UK intelligence suggested on April 18 that Russian commanders would be furious at the slow progress their forces were making in Mariupol. It ultimately took a month more to take the city.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tweeted Tuesday: "83 days of Mariupol defense will go down in history as the Thermopylae of the XXI century," a reference to the legendary battle where 300 Spartans held back a vast Persian army before being killed.

Podolyak continued: "'Azovstal' defenders ruined [Russia's] plan to capture the east of [Ukraine], took a hit on themselves and proved the real 'combat capability' of [Russia] … This completely changed the course of the war."

Ukraine's defense ministry said 53 of the troops evacuated from Monday were "seriously wounded" and that another 200 had been evacuated to the Russia-controlled town of Olenivka. Russia's defense ministry said Monday that it had agreed to the rescue mission.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Tuesday that Ukraine wants to swap Russian prisoners with those troops rescued from Azovstal. In a message posted to Telegram Tuesday, Zelenskyy said: "We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys. Among them are the seriously wounded, they are being provided with medical aid. I want to emphasize: Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive."

Mariupol became a critical target for Russia following Putin's decision to refocus Russian attacks away from Kyiv and onto the pro-Kremlin Donbas region.

Control of it enables them unbroken access by land between mainland Russia and the peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

However, Russia has struggled to achieve its aims in the Donbas, and is still facing stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces.

One critical target which Ukraine managed to secure in recent days is the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city located in the north of the country.

Ukraine's defense ministry said Saturday that Russian troops were now withdrawing from the city a major concession from Moscow.

Speaking to Insider, Giles, the analysts, said: "The manpower crisis that Russia is experiencing, and its difficulty in making progress on the front line, owes an intangible amount to their failure to seize Mariupol weeks before they did. "