Russian authorities are systematically seizing thousands of homes from Ukrainian residents of Mariupol a BBC Verify investigation has found as the city marks three years of occupation At least 5,700 homes have been identified for seizure many belonging to people who had to flee the city our analysis of documents published by the Russian-installed city authorities since July 2024 shows Ukrainians would have to face a dangerous return to Mariupol via Russia a complex bureaucratic process and overwhelming pressure to accept a Russian passport Most of the impacted properties were once occupied by Ukrainians who either fled or died during Russia's 86-day siege of the strategically important city in 2022 Human Rights Watch said the bombardment killed more than 8,000 people but noted that figure is "likely a significant underestimation" The confiscations appear to be part of a larger scheme to “Russify” the occupied coastal city which includes the construction of new military facilities and renaming streets to Moscow-approved titles Russia’s siege left 93% of Mariupol’s high-rise buildings - 443 towers - destroyed or damaged Russia claims to have built more than 70 new blocks of flats but locals say a huge housing shortage persists There have been reports for some time that Russia has been seizing property in occupied Ukraine But a new law has accelerated the process - and made it harder for Ukrainian owners to assert their rights As well as the 2,200 homes set for imminent seizure by city officials another 3,550 have been identified for potential confiscation city documents analysed by BBC Verify show Mariupol officials failed to reply when approached for comment Halyna is among the 350,000 Ukrainians estimated to have fled Mariupol to escape Russian occupation We have agreed not to identify her surname because of safety concerns for her family who remain in the city She said her block of flats in the seaside city - which had a pre-war population of 425,000 - was heavily damaged by Russian tank fire during the siege She has been told the "windows and doors" of the flat have been repaired and that people are living there without her permission “This is legalised stealing of property,” she said This is a typical example of a block in the city which would have housed dozens of Ukrainian families before the invasion The BBC has chosen not to show its exact location to protect residents 75 of its flats - including those indicated by red dots - face seizure Russian officials use the term “ownerless” to describe homes they say are not in use or have no legal owner - effectively property not registered in Russia But these flats do have legal owners - including Ukrainian residents who fled Russian occupation or the heirs of those who died in Russian attacks Official documents posted on the pro-Russian administration’s website show the complex process - outlined below - that leads to properties being seized after they are reported by local inspectors or residents the Russian-installed authorities publish an announcement on their website listing the property as having “signs of being ownerless” Then the owner must appear in Mariupol with ownership documents and a Russian passport Authorities say they will also accept other forms of ID which they do not specify If the owner doesn’t appear in person within 30 days of the publication of the list the authorities start to register the property as “ownerless” After the property is put on the "ownerless" register the authorities wait for three months before seeking a court order to transfer the home to city ownership We could not find records of how many flats have passed the final court stage But at a recent conference Oleg Morgun - the Russian-installed mayor of Mariupol - said a final court decision had been made to seize some 600 flats In practice if your home gets into any of those lists your property is pretty much “impossible” to retrieve a former adviser to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol Morgun insisted that homes will be taken off the register "if an owner appeals" a law adopted late last year allows the authorities to transfer ownership to individuals Only residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic who have lost property and hold Russian passports are eligible to obtain homes under the scheme These homes are in the advanced stages of seizure and therefore deemed - ownerless - ahead of a court hearing these homes have been identified as potentially ownerless - the earliest stage of the process The authorities appear to be seeking to make it harder for Ukrainians to assert their rights All homes in places like Mariupol must be registered in Russia - but a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin in March banned citizens of “unfriendly” countries - including Ukraine - from registering property in the occupied territories until 2028 without special permission it leaves Ukrainians with an impossible choice: their safety and their identities Pavlo said he had to remain in Mariupol throughout the siege after being shot by Russian soldiers He managed to prevent his home from being seized by obtaining a Russian passport and says that “95% of all talks in the city are about property” The BBC has agreed to hide his real name to protect his identity In Telegram chats reviewed by BBC Verify - some containing thousands of users - many locals appeared confused by the process and at times didn’t understand how their property ended up being declared “ownerless” "The rules are not clear and are not published anywhere," Halyna said "You can be prosecuted for anything Ukrainian in your phone or in your records they have on you." Diana Berg also fled the city to avoid Russian occupation To prevent the property falling into city ownership Diana's relative would have to return to Mariupol The only way to do that is to fly to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport where they would face gruelling security checks by the Federal Security Service (FSB) - known as "filtration" Diana said there is "no way" her family could travel to Mariupol but kept in this hub while they check you." The housing plans appear to be part of a larger campaign aimed at “Russifying” the southern Ukrainian city Satellite images and media reports show that a new naval academy and a large war memorial are being constructed A new city coat of arms has also been adopted which removes Ukrainian language and adds Russian symbols While many of these changes have been imposed with little pushback the housing scheme has prompted rare criticism from remaining Mariupol residents uncomfortable with the status of the flats they are being offered The protests emerged after President Putin personally endorsed the scheme in December One legal expert said that the plan marked a clear violation of the laws of war set out in the Fourth Geneva Convention and Hague Convention which prohibit the seizure of civilian property except in very limited cases chair of international law at Edinburgh University said the seizures were illegal as they stem from “an unlawful annexation” approved by parliament in Moscow in 2022 Mr Andrushenko said it was a distressing and confusing process “It's like someone hurt you again and again,” he said “You can’t understand how it is possible that your flat “It's like being hit on the head with a hammer.” The BBC downloaded documents containing lists of addresses from the official website of the Russian-installed authorities publicly available in Mariupol and values were added for each location's latitude and longitude If you’re interested in how BBC Verify carried out this investigation watch the video below on how some of the data was collected The Russians hunting for cheap flats in occupied Mariupol The 80 days that left a flourishing city in ruins co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Alina Beskrovna who is currently pursuing a Master's in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School Alina is from the city of Mariupol in South-Eastern Ukraine and was in the city during the first few weeks of the Russian attack on Mariupol in 2022 the Red Cross described the situation as “apocalyptic” and Ukrainian officials later reported that approximately 25,000 civilians had been killed and that at least 95% of the city had been destroyed during the fighting primarily by large-scale Russian bombardments.  Alina shares her first-hand account of living in Mariupol during the siege and her experience escaping the city that led to her current studies at Harvard Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Suggestions or feedback? Nearly three years after Russian military forces invaded Ukraine Ukrainian cities lie in ruin as the war drags on The seaside city of Mariupol was particularly hard hit Bombs hollowed out hospitals and homes and leveled banks and playgrounds The remaining 30 percent of the population still residing in Mariupol And of the 65,000 Mariupolites in exile across Ukraine and abroad its mayors and municipal managers are laser-focused on planning for recovery after the war “Ukrainian communities know we should build back better when the war is finished so what is that experience?” says Vadym Boichenko Mariupol mayor and head of development of de-occupied and temporarily occupied communities for the Association of Ukrainian Cities “leaders need to prepare good projects with vision and innovation for their communities,” he adds Success depends on drawing from cutting-edge research and forward-thinking approaches to urban economic development and planning the Kyiv-based Association of Ukrainian Cities and the nonprofit Mariupol Reborn created a virtual Community Recovery Academy that leans on MIT’s expertise This online training program for Ukrainian officials includes a series of lectures by professors in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) part of the Institute’s School of Architecture and Planning Talks include wisdom drawn from case studies coupled with theoretical lessons trying to mobilize a contribution from DUSP was a no-brainer; it’s the very least we can offer,” says Christopher Zegras DUSP department head and professor of mobility and urban planning Increasingly destructive weather events and ongoing conflicts worldwide have made post-disaster planning “a global need and unfortunately probably an increasing global need,” Zegras adds The connection to Ukrainian officials came from Washington-based DUSP alumnus Victor Hoskins MCP ’81 the president and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority learned about Ukraine’s need from a former colleague he had worked with as deputy mayor of planning and economic development in D.C where his office has branches that work to attract foreign companies to Fairfax County “a lot of my work has centered around going into jurisdictions that are having trouble and turning them around economically,” Hoskins says He set up a call with the vice-mayor of Mariupol who work in exile in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. “They’re in circumstances unimaginable to us,” Hoskins says “Anything we can do to help is a good thing.” One strategy Hoskins has used in his own planning and development work is consulting academic institutions for guidance. Orlov asked him to suggest a few schools in the United States try the best universities in the world,” says Hoskins who pledged DUSP’s support after learning about the project Officials from 37 communities across Ukraine were eager to learn best practices in urban development and about reconstruction planning and funding strategies to support rebuilding where air alerts are common and missiles often hum overhead a small team sketched out the Community Recovery Academy’s modules and curriculum. The academy launched in September 2024 with seven MIT professors on board to give lectures as part of the initiative’s second of four modules: “Economic Modeling, Recovery of Cities and Territories.” helped Zegras coordinate schedules and calls. “It’s important to think about how planners can respond to ongoing conflicts in the world,” Stokols says and it’s nice to know we can do something Lecture topics included transportation resilience and recovery by Jinhua Zhao professor of cities and transport and director of MIT Mobility Initiative and revitalizing main streets and small-town economic development strategies by Jeffrey Levine associate professor of the practice of economic development and planning associate professor of urban science and planning spoke on street commerce and designing to create vibrant urban sidewalks. Former special assistant for manufacturing and economic development at the White House National Economic Council and current DUSP professor of the practice Liz Reynolds also spoke on industrial transformation an affiliate with the MIT Industrial Performance Center ran a session with a Ukrainian counterpart on integrating Ukraine’s software industry with global value chains Talks were simultaneously translated into Ukrainian and participants had ample time to ask pressing questions associate professor of the practice of urban design and planning and principal at Sasaki and Associates shared insights from her work on Kabul’s 2017 to 2019 reconstruction during her presentation for Ukrainian officials She spoke about ways to attract investment and build consensus among key organizations and institutions that can support rebuilding while encouraging Ukrainian leaders to consider how marginalized Ukrainian populations could influence reconstruction Albert Saiz, the Daniel Rose Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate imparted lessons around urban and housing economics plus the economics of master planning He drew from examples of cities in the U.S He also delved into Japan and Germany’s recoveries after World War II A crucial lesson for Ukraine is the vital role external trade plays in recovery Japan focused on trade with other countries “it’s important to reestablish firm-based external Saiz explained how to structure credit guarantees which will be essential to helping Ukraine secure international financing Building temporary structures can be helpful constructing FEMA-type homes as an interim solution “I shared that you have to establish a clear path to your stakeholders but then you have to have flexibility within that path,” Saiz says The Community Recovery Academy is currently underway with the support of the U.K International Development and the International Republican Institute (IRI UKRAINE) in collaboration with steel and mining company Metinvest and Ukrainian investment group SCM Metinvest and SCM are also supporting planning work that’s been underway through the nonprofit organization Mariupol Reborn The group’s 2040 urban vision document includes insight from urban planners “The request is quite huge,” Boichenko says. Around 100 territorial communities applied to participate in the academy and the first phase accommodated a few dozen Orlov and Zegras hope to produce another set of MIT lectures this spring plans are in the works for a multidisciplinary multi-departmental fall 2025 MIT practicum during which students would work alongside Ukrainian officials on recovery planning. In the meantime lectures will be packaged into a free and open-access online learning course Zegras says he hopes the learning that’s gone into the work to date helps to provide an initial blueprint for Ukraine’s future as well as for planning’s potential role in rebuilding in a world where these types of efforts are increasingly needed — whether it be Sudan and we are definitely happy to work with MIT.” This website is managed by the MIT News Office, part of the Institute Office of Communications Massachusetts Institute of Technology77 Massachusetts Avenue A group of residents in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol launched a campaign pleading with Russian President Vladimir Putin to provide them with new homes after theirs were destroyed during Moscow’s siege on the city Mariupol was mostly destroyed during the Russian army’s two-month assault in the spring of 2022 At least 8,000 residents of the city died amid the siege Shortly after Moscow captured the southern port city which had a pre-war population of around 400,000 people Russian authorities rushed in with ambitious reconstruction plans promising to build new apartment blocks for locals However, some residents have accused local Kremlin-backed authorities of offering them properties abandoned by their owners instead of building new replacement homes, according to videos published earlier this month and then again over the weekend “There are tens of thousands of us who found ourselves unwanted in our own city although we waited for Russia and believed that it wouldn’t abandon us,” the survivors said in one of the videos addressed to Putin “And now we’re completely disappointed.” Local authorities have only replaced 70 of the more than 500 demolished apartment blocks adding that construction of new buildings was halted in favor of mortgage housing “You say [the lost homes] should be returned but our authorities seize them from those who can’t physically be here right now and want to give them out to others instead of building replacement housing,” a group of residents said we don’t need someone else’s [homes] referring to their refusal to accept abandoned properties instead of new homes Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent." These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help please support us monthly starting from just $2 and every contribution makes a significant impact independent journalism in the face of repression Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London He also covers other areas of geopolitics including China Brendan joined Newsweek in 2018 from the International Business Times and well as English You can get in touch with Brendan by emailing b.cole@newsweek.com or follow on him on his X account @brendanmarkcole either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content Ukrainian soldiers who defended the city of Mariupol during its brutal siege at the start of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion are among those exchanged in a prisoner swap after two and a half years in captivity Russia and Ukraine conducted their 58th prisoner exchange on Friday involving 190 captives, 95 from each side, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a deal reportedly brokered by the United Arab Emirates Among those returned were 34 Azov Regiment soldiers who defended the southern city and its steelworks of Azovstal which was eventually surrendered to Russian forces in May 2022 Denys "Redis" Prokopenko, the commander of the Azov brigade, said in a Facebook post that the soldiers had defended Mariupol for 86 days and allowed Ukraine to withstand the first Russian attack in the spring of 2022 He said that news of their release "gives the personnel of the 12th Azov Brigade strength and raises morale," adding that 900 soldiers remained in captivity "I welcome you back to your homeland and thank you for your resilience and loyalty to the motherland," he said Newsweek has contacted Prokopenko for further comment Zelensky said that the other troops released included those from the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Kherson regions and among them was the Ukrainian human rights activist and servicemember among the prisoners returned to Russia were conscripts who had been captured in Kursk Oblast during Ukraine's incursion into the Russian region according to the Russian organization "Our Way Out." They had been undergoing their mandatory 12 months of military service and never expected to see combat. Other Russian soldiers returned were mobilized Russian fighters and contract soldiers, including Kadyrovtsy the ruthless troops named after the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov The swap comes amid reports that Russian forces were executing Ukrainian prisoners which has said that 80 percent of such killings on the battlefield had taken place this year said that the executions aimed to intimidate Ukrainians to avoid the draft following a change in the country's mobilization legislation The Kursk incursion has presented more opportunities on both sides for prisoners to be taken "Their forces are more mobile there and their positions aren't that fortified and defended like along the contact line inside Ukraine," he told Newsweek Russian proven tactic of penetrating defense by small groups is more effective in Kursk." Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground Newsletters in your inbox See all 20 Days in MariupolDirected by Mstyslav Chernov the Oxford University Press open-source information for human rights investigation Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards Chernov is an Associated Press journalist and the President of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPF). He has been a member of “Ukrainian PEN” since July 2022 in the space of twenty days (which in their intensity resemble twenty years) the resistance of enormously outnumbered and ill armed Ukrainian fighters is vividly portrayed It offers beautifully composed filmography of some of the most brutal European war scenes ever placed into public broadcast While the vast majority of the images portray the defence of Mariupol by Ukrainian reservists and volunteers; the film makers manage (through drone footage) to give a sense of the suffering being experienced on the Russian side too This is instrumental in giving this film a much more objective tone than one might expect from a film-documentary based around crew-embedded filmographic reportage from the Ukrainian lines of war the vast film footage itself (ranging from shots of full-blown war Russian actions breaking specific UN prescriptions on use of ordinance and the generic protection of international humanitarian law) defy any definition of fairness in conflict soldiers and first-aiders and while these inevitably are only on the Ukrainian side again the film is so well edited that one would have no reasons to doubt its honesty There is abundant descriptive photomontage and filmography from extant and well-evidenced sources which have been through the BBC Verify and other well regarded film accreditation There is drone footage from both angles of the battle lines while they are exclusively on the Ukrainian side most of them are volunteers rather than professional soldiers The information provided is given almost without personal emotion and is often couched in words which are highly articulate as many of the armed volunteers are academically qualified professionals Their testimony is invariably supported by incident-specific evidence and carefully curated examples of experience There is surprisingly little invective about the other side It cannot truly hope to convey the suffering of Russian conscripts and in its nature it dwells little on possible atrocities perpetrated from the Ukrainian side the filmography is so wide-ranging that one could never regard it as being selective One concludes that this is genuinely twenty days in Mariupol as seen from the experience of combatants and humanitarian volunteers from behind the Ukrainian lines This is counterbalanced with images of suffering among the Russian campaign and caught by drone footage and generated for military intelligence purposes this juxtaposition of war experience means that the film never becomes an exclusive account of Ukrainian freedom-fighting or their painful losses The pains of both sides are exposed to professional filmographic analysis and there is a gruesome plenitude of content which is graphic that it would best be excluded from younger viewers this film is an excellent cinemographic tool for instructors and students in the IR field and exposes much the written word may not put succinctly The famous quotation “a picture tells a thousand words” i.e seeing something is better for learning than having it described His original words were “A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed” 20 Days in Mariupol is further evidence of the soundness of that old truism Martin Duffy has participated in more than two hundred international election and human rights assignments since beginning his career in Africa and Asia in the 1980s He has served with a wide range of international organizations and has frequently been decorated for field service among them UN (United Nations) Peacekeeping Citations and the Badge of Honour of the International Red Cross Movement He has also held several academic positions in Ireland He is a proponent of experiential learning and several other institutions including the Diploma in International Relations at the University of Cambridge Copyright © — E-International Relations spokesperson of the Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces "They are deploying [personnel and military equipment] both from the Donetsk region and from Russian territory and they are also transporting through Crimea as their group 'Dnepr' is stationed in temporarily occupied Crimea Training centers and preparation facilities for Russian assault troops are mostly located in temporarily occupied Crimea A certain amount of military equipment and armaments are also being moved from there they are actively using the logistical route – the railway – which was recently built," Voloshyn said Asked whether Ukrainian forces are targeting these logistical routes "We are targeting these logistical routes They understand very well that their success completely depends on the logistics," he said Russia launched regular railway service between Rostov-on-Don Russian occupiers have developed this railway line to shorten the route for delivering military equipment to the front The line connects Rostov-on-Don to Mariupol and Volnovakha There are also plans to extend the railway line to Crimea While citing and using any materials on the Internet links to the website ukrinform.net not lower than the first paragraph are mandatory citing the translated materials of foreign media outlets is possible only if there is a link to the website ukrinform.net and the website of a foreign media outlet Materials marked as "Advertisement" or with a disclaimer reading "The material has been posted in accordance with Part 3 of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On Advertising" No 1996 and the Law of Ukraine "On the Media" No 2023 and on the basis of an agreement/invoice Online media entity; Media identifier - R40-01421 According to Ukrinform, the head of the Center for Occupation Studies, former advisor to the mayor of Mariupol Petro Andriushchenko, reported this in Telegram <script async src="https://telegram.org/js/telegram-widget.js?22" data-telegram-post="andriyshTime/35726" data-width="100%"></script> “Movements towards Zaporizhzhia region have resumed again, and separately, new “contract soldiers” have been brought to the camps between Mariupol and Berdiansk,” Andriushchenko said He noted that 90% of military equipment was sent to the north of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia “Almost for the first time since the beginning of the war the vast majority was sent to Donetsk region The changes in the Russians' plans for a future potential offensive are indicative...” concluded the head of the Center for Occupation Studies the Russian invaders have turned Mariupol and the surrounding villages into a military and logistics hub A blog of the Kennan Institute 2023: "Royal Theatre of the Mint" (Royal Theatre of La Monnaie 1700) - opera house in central Brussels displays a banner showing the Mariupol Theater (Ukraine) destroyed by Russia Few Britons or Americans had ever heard of Mariupol before 2022 The southern Ukrainian steel town and port of around 120,000 residents did not attract many tourists more than two and a half years after the Russian full-scale invasion the occupied rust-belt city has become a symbol of Russian brutality thanks to news coverage of the three-month Russian siege in 2022 and Stystav Chernov’s documentary about it The film won the 2024 Oscar for best documentary feature Inna Goncharova’s powerful play about the city won critical acclaim at its premiere at London’s Finborough Theatre in July Goncharova’s script tells the true story of the lone survivor of one of Ukraine’s marine brigade bands at Mariupol a trumpeter trapped for 80 days with other Ukrainian fighters in the underground labyrinth under the massive Azovstal steel plant Held up with companions by an unrelenting Russian artillery barrage the trumpeter desperately tries to find harmony in his music as he plans to compose a “symphony of war.”  The trumpeter is joined by three other characters sheltering in the same bunker The audience learns about the trumpeter’s life as a musician against the constant backdrop of shaking walls and falling ceilings Russian bombs interrupt his efforts to understand why he has failed as a composer His constant self-reflection and horn tooting increasingly irritate his bunker mates whose nerves are frayed from living through constant attack The play becomes a 60-minute search for harmony amid cacophony and public figure in the Kyiv theater community She teamed up with admired actor Peter Mironov in 2022 to bring this play to Kyiv audiences.  English writer John Farndon included the work among several wartime Ukrainian plays he translated for the London stage. The Guardian’s David Jays found The Trumpet to provide a feverish foray into the mind of warriors through a work that pays passionate homage to Ukraine’s lost musicians Veteran London actor Kristin Milwad dominates the production as the trumpeter Jays reports that Milwad “rattles with vitality stretching an incongruous smile despite the circumstances.” He writes “We don’t hear the composer’s music but Milwad performs a vocal symphony: smoke-voiced anxiety a voice worn to wisp by fear—and the rasp of breath in the darkness that means survival.”  the diminutive Finborough has worked closely with Farndon and the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings project to bring Ukrainian works to London Their collaborations include a highly praised production of Neda Nejdana’s Pussycat in Memory of Darkness As audiences of this summer’s Finborough plays and last winter’s documentary film discovered Mariupol’s anguish encapsulates the tragedy of the current war in Ukraine the city’s ordinariness speaks to the torment Ukrainians face about their past failures and future potential as well as to the hopes and fears of anyone anywhere during wartime The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute "…Ukrainian troops have caused serious damage to … the [building] of the Mariupol Republican Academic Order of the Badge of Honor Russian Drama Theater." The Russian government last week released a “Strategy of State Cultural Policy,” stating goals for the next six years The plan prioritizes measures to protect “Russian traditional values” from the West’s “pernicious” influence that “cause irreparable damage” to “basic moral and cultural norms.” The plan includes increased funding for efforts to counter “attempts by unfriendly states to undermine the worldwide influence of the Russian culture.” Russification of Ukrainians who live under the Russian occupation is one the strategy’s main goals Moscow-founded institutions and schools will be “re-educating” Ukrainians starting Among many “historic truths” highlighted in the Russian strategy is the story of Ukraine’s Mariupol drama theater which it says was “seriously damaged” by the Ukrainian Armed Forces "Since the beginning of the special military operation, Ukrainian troops have caused serious damage to iconic cultural institutions, unique historical and architectural monuments, and religious sites. Among them … the [building] of the Mariupol Republican Academic Order of the Badge of Honor Russian Drama Theater," the cultural policy document states Ukraine used the Mariupol Theater as a bomb shelter, with the word “Children” painted in large white letters on a pavement space outdoors. Russia bombed and destroyed it on March 16 The Associated Press investigated the bombing and recreated the events of that day from the testimonies of 23 survivors “Amid all the horrors that have unfolded in the war on Ukraine the Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol on March 16 stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that the attack was in fact far deadlier than estimated killing closer to 600 people inside and outside the building,” the AP reported in May 2022 AP also debunked the Russian claims at the time that servicemen from Ukraine’s Azov battalion blew up the shelter they had mined “Not one person doubted that the theater was destroyed in a Russian air attack aimed with precision at a civilian target with children in it,” AP reported The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Human Rights Watch and the U.K.-based watchdog Amnesty International classified the attack as constituting a war crime The OSCE reported in April 2022 that up to 1,300 people sought shelter in the Mariupol theater on the day of the Russian strike The OSCE classified the attack as a likely war crime and violation of international humanitarian law Human Rights Watch has verified videos showing the Mariupol theater engulfed in smoke and flames after a Russian strike and stated that targeting civilian structures may constitute a war crime under international law Amnesty International’s investigation concluded that Russian forces committed “a clear war crime” by deliberately targeting the Mariupol theater on March 16 despite knowing civilians were sheltering there The report details how two 500-kilogram bombs Amnesty’s Crisis Response team interviewed survivors analyzed digital evidence and used a mathematical model to confirm the bombs' explosive weight The investigation ruled out alternative explanations identifying a deliberate airstrike on a civilian target as the most plausible scenario To this day, Russia conducts systematic airstrikes on Ukraine’s residential areas destroy infrastructure and turn Ukrainian cities into uninhabitable ghost towns On October 22, Russian drones targeted a residential area in Sumy The attack was part of a larger overnight air assault across several Ukrainian regions The reported attack comes just days before Russia's Victory Day parade and three-day "truce." Vice President Mike Pence said Putin "only understands power." About 800 million euros ($905 million) will be allocated for the acquisition and installation of anti-tank mines to deter potential aggression  (Updated:  May 6, 2025 9:36 am)War analysisFrance is sending Ukraine more AASM Hammer bombs — here's what they can do Polish President Andrzej Duda said the United States has tools that can effectively influence the Kremlin arguing that only President Donald Trump has real leverage over Russian President Vladimir Putin The number includes 1,430 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement" by Benjamin Nathans which covers dissent in the Soviet Union and Russia today Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on May 5 announced they had facilitated Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash's escape from Russia to France after she fled house arrest on April 21 A Russian drone attack on Odesa Oblast on May 5 killed one and caused damage to local infrastructure "We appreciate that Germany plays a pivotal role in supporting Ukraine throughout the years of war Ukraine is also grateful for your personal commitment," President Volodymyr Zelensky said MPs will be able to ask questions and learn more about the details of the agreement in meetings with Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko May 6-7 MP Serhii Sobolev told the news outlet Suspilne The ratification vote is scheduled for May 8 Attacks against the border villages of Bilopillia and Vorozhba damaged civilian infrastructure and triggered emergency evacuations the regional military administration reported "I look forward to working with President Erdogan on getting the ridiculous war between Russia and Ukraine ended — now!" U.S Putin's Victory Day truce "doesn't sound like much if you know where we started from," Trump told reporters at the White House on May 5  (Updated:  December 19, 2024 3:00 pm) • 1 min readby Kateryna DenisovaA damaged building in the Russian-occupied port city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)Russia is planning to build a ring road around the Azov Sea passing through the occupied territories of Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual press conference and a call-in program on Dec The road is expected to run through Russia's Rostov Oblast, the occupied Ukrainian towns of Mariupol, Melitopol, and Henichesk in the country's east and south, and through Dzhankoi in occupied Crimea Moscow has already built a 40-kilometer-long (25 miles) segment between the Russian city of Taganrog and Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast "We plan to bring the roads to Russian standards within three years," he said The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims Russia is also illegally constructing a railroad between Russia's city Rostov-on-Don and Crimea, which would run via occupied Donetsk, Mariupol, and Berdiansk in Zaporizhzhia Oblast The railroad will likely serve as an alternative to the Kerch Bridge which connects the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula and became a critical supply route for Moscow's forces after the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine Ukraine's military intelligence said the Russian railway could pose "a serious problem" and is "an important target" for Kyiv Kateryna Denisova works as a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent She previously worked as a news editor at the NV media outlet for four years covering mainly Ukrainian and international politics Kateryna holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv She also was a fellow at journalism schools in the Czech Republic and Germany The TimesAt the height of his powers after the Second World War artists and musicians show slavish obedience to Communist dogma A ruthless party boss who had personally approved 175 execution lists during Stalin’s Great Purge in the 1930s he denounced Anna Akhmatova — one of Russia’s finest poets — as “half-nun half harlot” and ostracised Ukrainian writers judged to have been too nationalistic when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate and popular feeling turned against Stalin’s henchmen The museum for Andrei Zhdanov has been opened in MariupolBETTMANNNow, as Vladimir Putin revives some of the sentiments of Zhdanov’s time in modern Russia Registered in England No. 894646. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. The start of Russia’s devastating attack on the city was vividly documented in the Oscar-winning film 20 Days in Mariupol but the battle raged on for almost three months ending only in May 2022 when Kyiv ordered some 2,500 troops to lay down arms and leave the vast Azovstal steelworks that they had turned into a fortress Azovstal became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance as Mariupol’s defenders defied dwindling supplies of food and ammunition to tie down a vastly larger Russian force in the city on the Azov Sea even as casualties grew and a field hospital in the factory had to perform amputations and other surgery in spartan conditions Relatives of the besieged fighters saw Russia pummelling Azovstal from air until the order to evacuate fuelled their hopes that the soldiers would now survive and return home after a few months in a prisoner exchange it was just the start of a much longer ordeal for the soldiers and their relatives Well over 1,000 Mariupol defenders are still in captivity and scores were killed soon after the fall of Azovstal in what Ukraine calls a heinous Russian war crime On the night of July 28th, 2022, explosions at the Olenivka jail in an occupied part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region turned one of its barracks into an inferno killing more than 50 prisoners of war (POWs) and injuring more than 100 “I saw on the news that there had been an explosion at Olenivka But there was no detailed information,” says Anna Lobova whose husband Oleh Lobov was being held at the prison after fighting at Azovstal “Then Russia released a list of the dead and the wounded from the explosion It wasn’t until the middle of August that I saw a clip of POWs in a Donetsk hospital had been among hundreds of wounded men in Azovstal Shrapnel had hit him in the pelvis and he could not walk or feel his legs but without an X-ray machine in the factory-fortress the medics could not risk surgery Artem had called from detention and said he hoped to be swapped and sent home by August,” says his wife “But he was in the barracks at Olenivka that was hit And the next day I saw he was on the list released by Russia of those who had been badly injured,” she adds “At the start of that August I saw him on Russian television his skin was covered in burns and his right arm was wounded He said he loved us very much and was waiting to be exchanged.” Moscow claimed Olenivka had been hit by US-made Himars rockets supplied to Ukraine but that was dismissed by Kyiv and a United Nations report that suggested the barracks had been shelled from a Russian-controlled area; Russia also prevented UN and international Red Cross teams from accessing Olenivka to investigate Lobov and Hondiul are among more than 800 soldiers from the Azov regiment who are still in Russian captivity and make up the bulk of Mariupol defenders who have not been freed in prisoner swaps “We don’t know where they are being held or what condition they are in,” says Lobova “They’ve been in Russian prisons for more than 1,000 days We thought that in all that time Ukraine would have been able to bring home at least those who were hurt in the terrorist attack on Olenivka.” Lobova and Hondiul belong to a group called the Olenivka Community that campaigns for the release of Mariupol defenders in the face of what it sees as official indifference or foot-dragging on the issue in Kyiv Some of the group’s members are threatening to go on hunger strike next month, and in January they urged Trump to intercede on their behalf with Russian president Vladimir Putin as the US pushes to end Europe’s biggest war since 1945. “It is known that you intend to talk with Putin and organise a personal meeting. We kindly ask you, Mr Trump, to appeal to Putin to release the wounded prisoners of war who were treacherously blown up [at Olenivka],” the group said in its appeal. “This crime has not been investigated ... Those who survived the hell are still being held in Russian captivity. We are begging you for help.” The White House has not replied directly to the Olenivka Community’s message but has pledged to help Ukraine bring home soldiers and civilians from Russian jails. Survivors of the Olenivka massacre say that the day before the explosions they were transferred from regular barracks to a building that had been hastily converted into a makeshift dormitory. All the men who were moved into the doomed building were from Azov, which Russia demonises as a band of fascist fanatics fighting for a “neo-Nazi” Kyiv regime, even long after the unit has expanded away from its far-right roots and become a brigade of Ukraine’s national guard. Russia gives Azov POWs long jail terms – 12 of them were sentenced this week to between 13 and 23 years on terrorism charges – and is reluctant to exchange them. Bohdan Krotevych, Azov’s chief of staff during the Azovstal siege, was freed with other leaders of the unit in September 2022, when Russia swapped 215 captives for Ukrainian politician and Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk and other prisoners held by Kyiv. Krotevych was kept in Olenivka for a few days and then moved to the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, where he was placed in solitary confinement. He was not allowed out for exercise and meals were slid through a hole in the cell door. “For four months I didn’t see or speak to anyone. I think they were trying to drive me and other POWs insane. I was under video surveillance 24 hours a day and the light was always on, so it was impossible to distinguish day from night,” he says. “But compared to other places where our soldiers are held, Lefortovo was like a resort. Many Azov fighters have died of torture,” adds Krotevych (32), who resigned from Azov last month but retains close ties to the brigade. He says any peace deal must oblige Russia to free all POWs, and believes Ukraine has a duty to bring them home. “We had no way of taking our casualties out of Azovstal and couldn’t leave without them. Above all, that’s why we didn’t get out ... And when we finally left, it was because the lives of our wounded depended on it, because we didn’t have medical supplies to treat them,” Krotevych recalls. “I like the film Saving Private Ryan, which asks why so many people die for just one guy. It’s the idea that no one will be left behind – and I still believe in that.” Facebook pageTwitter feed© 2025 The Irish Times DAC Defenders of the city of Mariupol and of the Azovstal steel plant in southeastern Ukraine are among the 25 prisoners released by Russia in a reciprocal prisoner exchange The freed prisoners include both military personnel and civilians, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “Many of them have serious injuries and illnesses, and each will receive all the necessary medical care,” he wrote on X “I am grateful to the team that searches for our people and organizes this important work. We extend our gratitude to the United Arab Emirates for their assistance in making today’s event possible,” the president added Mariupol was besieged by the Russian army in May 2022 when the last soldiers defending the city’s Azovstal steelworks were evacuated The Russian Defense Ministry also announced that 25 Russian servicemen had been returned from Ukraine and were being sent first to Belarus where they will receive psychological and medical care and contact their families In early January, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmitro Lubinets reported the existence of a preliminary agreement with the Russians for a systematic exchange of prisoners in 2025 Lubinets said the two countries will prioritize the return of captives who are seriously ill and wounded “We will see if the Russian side keeps its word,” Lubinets added in an interview Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting to this story Military spending surged last year in ways unseen since the Cold War Budapest has opened the door to using AI facial recognition to identify LGBTQ+ protestors Ukraine’s supporters promised a record new round of military aid MAGA’s biggest cheerleaders struggle to justify “Make America Wealthy Again” measures little white notices have appeared on doorways to residential blocks all over Mariupol wrecked and then seized by Russia in May 2022 “An inventory of your block will be carried out to identify ownerless property; the owner of the apartment should be at home with documents and a Russian passport.” The print is small Unless the apartments are re-registered with the Russian occupying authorities and people are living in them the properties will soon be declared ownerless and sold This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The spoils of war” Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents George Simion will face Nicusor Dan, a mainstream candidate, in a run-off There are five luxuries it can no longer feasibly afford Friedrich Merz’s career is one of unforced errors and puzzling missteps. But he is serious about Europe Both Donald Trump and Ukraine’s diplomats will consider it a success ShareSaveBusinessPolicyThe Siege Of Mariupol: Death, Starvation And DestructionByDr. Ewelina U. Ochab Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights Dr Ewelina U Ochab is a Forbes contributor 09:31am EDTShareSaveFresh graves are seen at a cemetery in the city of Mariupol on June 2 (Photo credit: STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images) which was launched in response to the need of the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG) to increase capacity to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes perpetrated since the full-scale invasion by Russian forces in February 2022 The report found that over the course of the 85-day offensive on Mariupol (February 24 to May 20 pro-Russian forces systematically attacked objects indispensable to the survival (OIS) of the civilian population Russian forces indiscriminately bombed food distribution points pro-Russian forces were willfully impeding access to humanitarian aid and denying them access to organized evacuation routes The report found that this pattern of conduct left experts to conclude that the starvation of civilians in Mariupol City by Russian forces was intentionally used as a method of warfare Mariupol was one of the first cities to come under Russian attack in the opening weeks of the 2022 invasion Russian forces struck a major powerline blacking out half of Mariupol city This was followed by a four-day onslaught of shelling that fully cut power and gas to over 450,000 Ukrainian residents exposing them to winter temperatures plummeting to -12.4°C Water pumping stations were also neutralized cutting off access to heating and drinking water forcing civilians to melt snow for drinking water and in some cases radiator water or street puddles to avoid dehydration Over 90% of healthcare facilities indispensable to civilian survival were damaged or destroyed during the siege with all 19 of the city’s hospitals impacted by the end of May 2022 Russian forces are said to have not made any effort to mitigate risk to civilian life or objects and damaged and destroyed 90% of Mariupol’s residential homes in the siege distribution points also came under attack with at least 22 supermarkets damaged or destroyed despite being used for distributing basic necessities one attack investigated by the SMJT was on the Neptun Swimming Pool Complex despite satellite imagery showing the clear presence of hundreds of civilians queuing at this distribution point in the days immediately prior several hundred people were residing in the building Clear lettering – ДЕТИ (meaning children in Russian) – written in front of the building did not stop the attack The SMJT’s analysis confirmed that “this lettering was clearly visible from the altitude range from which Russian warplanes would have dropped the involved ammunition and unavoidable to surveying flights.” The analysis of Global Rights Compliance indicates that there was no evidence of any legitimate military targets in the localities The report of the Global Rights Compliance attempts to show the true scale and nature of the attack on Mariupol one of the most serious cases of atrocity crimes in this war aimed at the destruction of the communities The report forms part of a wider submission to the ICC As the ICC continues to look into atrocities committed in Ukraine the report will help the Office of the Prosecutor to formulate further charges Considering the ever-growing evidence suggesting hallmarks of the crime of genocide the question is whether an arrest warrant for genocide will follow - whether for the atrocities in Mariupol Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has handed control of the Illich Steel and Iron Works in Mariupol to associates of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov for looting, reports The Wall Street Journal “Kadyrov and his associates are removing and selling off modern metallurgical equipment shipping scrap metal to Russia for use by its sanctions-crimped carmakers and hawking industrial gasses to Moscow’s space program,” the publication states situated near the Azov Sea in the Donetsk region Trucks carrying rolled products frequently leave the factory bound for Russia The occupiers have already dismantled and sent to Russia a production line worth $220 million that was installed shortly before the full-scale invasion began a Moscow trading company exported steel products worth $380,000 “Other Russian companies have picked up containers and coal left at the plant according to those records,” the text reads a cargo of $50,000 of metals was exported from the plant to Uzbekistan A before-and-after collage illustrating the dramatic decline of Mariupol’s Illich Steel and Iron Works The steel plant was one of the largest enterprises in the Azov region and Donetsk as well as one of the largest metallurgical plants in the former USSR and a key exporter for Ukraine The enterprise collaborated with more than 90 countries and employed over 14,000 workers an international group of mining and metallurgical companies owned by Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov The plant celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2022 “Before the full-scale invasion, construction of a new air distribution unit complex was underway there, with a project cost exceeding $55 million. The plant also continued to supply oxygen to hospitals free of charge for the treatment of COVID-19 patients,” writes Hromadske The metallurgical industry is one of the key sectors for Ukraine’s economy the industry accounted for about 38 percent of the country’s economic output and contributed significant amounts of tax revenue to the state budget Since Feb. 24, 2022, metallurgy has suffered the most among industries, according to the Kyiv School of Economics it has continued to play a key role despite the challenges posed by the ongoing war [email protected] [email protected] FB: @uwcongress Russian authorities continue deporting Ukrainian children from occupied territories, recently taking another 119 schoolchildren from the temporarily occupied Donetsk regional city of Mariupol, the National Resistance Center (NRC) reports which includes meetings with Russian propagandists “The occupiers conduct such systematic trips of our children to Russia in order to assimilate young Ukrainians into Moscow’s identity,” the NRC states The children are being forced to swear allegiance to Russia and intolerance toward the Ukrainian nation and culture is being fostered there are cases when children could not return home after such ‘school field trips’ during the holidays,” the report says the Kremlin is also carrying out a genocide of Ukrainians through abductions.” In addition to targeting children, Russia is forcibly conscripting Ukrainian youth in Mariupol The occupiers have already drafted and sent Ukrainian citizens from occupied Mariupol and areas of the Zaporizhzhia region to Russian military units [email protected] [email protected]  (Updated:  September 18, 2024 10:00 am) • 1 min readby Kateryna HodunovaThe aftermath of the Ukrainian attack on Russian ammunition depots in Russian-occupied Mariupol Ukrainian forces did not disclose the exact date of the attack (Ukraine's Navy/Telegram)The Ukrainian Navy recently carried out a missile strike on ammunition depots near the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol The strike destroyed both the storage infrastructure and tons of ammunition that Russian troops were stockpiling for use against Ukraine, the Navy said Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the exiled mayor of Mariupol, shared photos showing Russia's "destroyed warehouses" in the neighboring village of Hlyboke Mariupol came under siege by Russian forces between February and May 2022, leaving thousands dead and reducing Mariupol to rubble According to authorities' rough estimates at least 25,000 people may have been killed during the siege of Mariupol The exact number remains unknown and could be much higher Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy about 540,000 people called the bustling city in southeastern Ukraine home It was a place as rich in culture as it was in industry city residents crowded onto Mariupol’s beaches wading into the shallow waters to a chorus of seagulls They strolled through the city’s main garden enjoying its tulips and playgrounds with a view of the sea “Let’s meet at the water tower,” friends would say to each other gathering at the century-old red and white brick tower in the city center There were popular festivals celebrating the arts – like Gogolfest in honor of the nineteenth century novelist and playwright Nikolai Gogol Ukrainians from all over came to see plays at the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater and attend performances at Mariupol’s Chamber Philharmonic next door A young girl waves a Ukrainian flag at Ukraine Independence Day celebrations on August 21 The Sea of Azov as seen from Mariupol on January 30 © 2022 Brendan Hoffman/New York Times Children play in front of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in May 2021 © 2021 SEBASTIAN BACKHAUS/Agentur Focus/Redux A playbill for Gogolfest in Mariupol on May 1 Artists perform a concert during Gogolfest in Mariupol on May 1 Home to two of Ukraine’s largest iron and steel factories, Mariupol invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its roads, public transportation, and parks.1 The sea was both a part of the city’s identity and part of its promise: one of the largest ports in the region allowed Ukraine to export coal Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation along with affiliated armed groups from the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine engaged in a fierce battle against the Armed Forces of Ukraine to take Mariupol Dominating areas to the west of the city would allow the Kremlin to control a land corridor between the Crimean Peninsula and the Donbas region As Russian and affiliated forces gained ground families left their homes and followed stairs deep into basements an estimated 450,000 civilians remained stranded in Mariupol The fighting had seriously impaired critical infrastructure By April 13, occupying forces had seized control of most of the city, declaring victory on April 21.2 On May 17 Ukrainian forces holding out at the Azovstal steel plant began surrendering The fate of Mariupol rested in Russian hands and remains so War transformed the city into something unrecognizable: a tangled mess of crumpled buildings and a place of shallow graves Thousands of civilians were killed during the fighting or died from other causes Mariupol has suffered some of the worst destruction in war-scarred Ukraine SITU Research and Truth Hounds collaborated to document the devastation of Mariupol we relied on accounts obtained in person or by phone from hundreds of displaced survivors and witnesses; geolocated and verified 850 photographs and videos; analyzed satellite imagery of graves to estimate the death toll; conducted a remote block-by-block assessment of the extensive damage in the city center; and investigated which Russian forces and commanders may be responsible for war crimes We focused on the damage around Myru Avenue Our investigation included analyzing 4,884 damaged or destroyed buildings in an area measuring roughly 14 square kilometers Creating 3D models of seven buildings within this area helped illustrate the extent of the damage. Russian occupying forces began tearing down buildings as early as June 2022.3 These seven buildings each represented a different and unique part of life in Mariupol One was a residential apartment complex that hundreds of people a hospital where city residents accessed health care There was the university where students learned about the world and fostered skills to develop their city A cozy single-family home in a quiet neighborhood There was the neoclassical building in the center of the city They became something else: first places of refuge Two years have passed since Russian forces besieged Mariupol drawn to other hotspots in the grinding war or to other major conflicts But life has not returned to normal for the city’s residents; the Mariupol they knew is largely gone As Russian occupying forces clear away the rubble building a new city in Russia’s image between mass graves and the Sea of Azov Many are waiting anxiously for the city to be restored to Ukrainian control and for those responsible for abuses to face justice This project aspires to support the push for accountability It also tries to capture some of what was lost so that it is not forgotten called “Arishulka” by her grandmother “Look Dyma, I am a princess,” the smiling toddler told her 22-year-old neighbor, Dmytro Lastenko, urging him to join in her make-believe.4 many residents of Mytropolytska Street – a tree-lined street running through downtown Mariupol – hoped they would find safety in basement rooms The basement of the large apartment complex seemed like the safest bet. It was one of hundreds of places that local authorities designated as shelters.5 huddled in blankets next to other families they prayed for relief from the war raging outside some filming the experience on their phones They exited only briefly through the green front door, into the freezing cold and swirling snow, to find clean water and to cook food on makeshift stoves.6 On March 11, Arina spent the afternoon dancing and playing in the basement.7 Around 3 p.m., Danylo, an entrepreneur, was protectively taping his windows shut in the neighboring building when he heard an aircraft overhead.8 He ran into the corridor for safety his windows shattering into jagged pieces of sharp glass An air-dropped bomb tore through the middle of Mytropolytska Street 98 a high-rise residential building in the city’s Central District 93 percent of high-rise residential buildings were damaged in attacks It was the kind of tactic that Russian forces have employed elsewhere in the country, such as in Izium where they appear to have targeted residential apartment buildings with air-dropped bombs Facts about the attack the highest levels of Russia’s command structures had detailed knowledge of the situation in Mariupol and were involved in the planning and coordination of military operations conducted there Other senior officers in Russia’s General Staff and other forces including the director of the National Guard of Russia and the then-commander of the Southern Military District also had command responsibilities and most likely participated in high-level decision-making five floors collapsed in the central part of the building ripping apart wallpapered living rooms and tiled bathrooms Entrance number 3, close to where families had cooked outside for days, was gone.9 The result was a heaping pile of destruction some 25 meters wide, according to the estimates of one man, Pavlo, who was part of a series of teams later tasked with removing rubble - and bodies - from the building.10 bodies blackened by fire lay on the ground The room where Arina’s family had spent days and nights sheltering was destroyed people’s belongings hung in the trees the air tinged with the smell of burned flesh Survivors emerged from the smoldering basement in a state of shock people turned to strangers on the internet in a desperate plea to find their loved ones “Are they alive?” read one March 2022 message The message was in a neighborhood Telegram group alongside a series of photographs: Arina smiling in a blue holiday dress Her parents embracing in front of a Christmas tree The Telegram exchange was one of thousands in a flurry of messages from people desperate to find family and friends as news emerged of attack after attack on residential buildings and shelters across the city Nobody seemed to know where the Antipenko family was On April 24, 2022, Orthodox Easter Day, a group of men tasked by the Russian occupation administration to remove rubble and bodies from buildings found the body of a child at Mytropolytska Street 98.14 Pavlo had chosen not to work at the site that day He knew they were going to find the child; survivors had told him that Arina and her family never emerged from the rubble one of 17 bodies and body parts found by Pavlo and his team over several weeks in April and was found next to bodies that matched the description of the Antipenko family by people who saw them before the attack: a man in dark clothes returned to the ruins of the building in search of his identity documents On it were three undelivered messages from March 6 Stefaniia repeatedly tried to enter Mariupol to find her family she successfully entered the city and began her months-long search She walked up and down streets in her daughter’s neighborhood showing photographs of her missing relatives “I went to different basements and shouted the names of my children,” she said “People were still huddling in basements Stefaniia returned to the ruins of Mytropolytska Street 98 where blankets and clothing lay strewn under rocks and jagged wire She recognized some of the items: Ivan and Khrystyna’s marriage document She visited the city’s central makeshift morgue again and again she meticulously combed through decomposing piles of the bodies of men Some bodies were wrapped in large black bags too: mounds of clothing and footwear taken from victims like clockwork: unclaimed bodies were buried after two or three days She didn’t want to miss finding her family’s bodies if they arrived at the morgue the next day we would try to recover after [seeing] the horror,” she said Stefaniia found a photograph of Arina’s body in a computer database of the city’s dead managed by occupation authorities “She had an earring in the shape of a crown,” she said Arina was assigned a number in the database: 1734 So Stefaniia went looking in Mariupol’s biggest cemetery where she found a grave marked with the number 1734 But next to the grave’s cross was the picture of another little girl It wasn’t Arina; it was a girl named Eva who Stefaniia was told had been shot in a car Eva’s family had mistaken Arina’s body for their own little girl Stefaniia dreamed that she heard Arina whimpering from inside the mislabeled grave It wasn’t until October 5 that she was finally able to find her granddaughter’s body which had been dug up from Starokrymske cemetery by Eva’s relatives a week earlier and reburied in Novotroitske cemetery about 2.5 kilometers northeast of the city’s Left Bank district With the permission of occupying authorities who was buried in a black body bag inside of a small coffin and reburied her in her hometown elsewhere in Ukraine She has not found the bodies of Arina’s parents they remain “missing,” their remains lost among the remains of thousands of other people Stefaniia provided her own DNA sample to occupation authorities They told her to wait for DNA test results from bodies that would be compared to DNA samples of surviving relatives and that the process could take over a year I only ask God to find the bodies of my children to bury War forms part of Mariupol’s recent history: its residents endured nearly two years of German military occupation from 1941 to 1943 most of them members of the Jewish community The grandchildren of those who lived through that time would also live through armed conflict Russia-backed armed groups and Ukrainian government forces clashed in parts of Mariupol Mariupol residents had become accustomed to living close to the front lines and occasionally hearing fighting in the distance nobody was prepared to see their neighbors die in the street their loved ones crushed in basements – and the loss of Mariupol to Russia “Every street is saturated with blood horror,” said one former Mariupol resident many years…probably for more than one generation.” It only took a week or two for the city to become unrecognizable several hundred thousand remaining residents faced the same challenge: how to stay alive Medical staff were inside the hospital complex one that required strategy and luck to secure the basics: water for drinking and washing At around 2:50 p.m. on March 9, residents near the hospital heard an aircraft overhead followed by a massive explosion that shattered glass, triggered car alarms, and sent a plume of smoke high in the air. “[The] shock wave lifted me off the ground,” said Demian, who lived 400 meters east of the hospital’s maternity unit.17 The attack appeared to target the hospital complex, damaging the maternity unit and children’s diagnostic unit, and leaving a deep crater in one of the hospital’s courtyards.18 Facts about the attack The hospital was one of 19 in Mariupol damaged during the fighting. By the end of March 2022, all of the city’s hospitals had “effectively ceased to function,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said.19 Ukrainian officials said the attack killed at least two adults and a child Medical staff transferred patients to other medical facilities some of which were also struck during attacks Some survivors went into the hospital’s underground bunker including 30 children of medical staff and injured children who were being treated at the hospital at the time of the attack “It was dark and cold, and our collective breath created a lot of moisture,” said Diana who sheltered there and tended to wounded civilians. “Everything was soggy. At night, I was covered in several blankets, and they were all disgustingly moist and cold.” 21 Doctors performed rudimentary surgery, bandaging wounds, administering injections, removing shrapnel, and amputating one man’s hand with a bayonet knife.22 They deposited trash and other waste where they placed the remains of those who died including the body of a girl who died in the shelter Meanwhile, throughout March, attacks continued to hit the medical complex. As blast waves rocked the heavy doors of the bunker, those sheltering inside came up with activities to distract the children.23 we gave them simple tasks like sorting pills which they did with great eagerness and meticulousness,” said Rustam thousands of people endured similar conditions “Without [the volunteers’] help, we would have likely starved to death,” said Diana.26 Children cried from hunger and dodged shelling to fetch water from springs and wells Venturing outside to get water was risky; some people never returned Those sheltering in the hospital’s bunker were comparatively lucky “The way to the well was covered with corpses,” Diana said. “Those people who were brave enough to go there were likely to become our patients with pieces of [their bodies] torn off.”27 On March 9, minutes after the attack on Hospital #3, Mykhailo Puryshev heard an aircraft approaching.28 rushing with a group of people into a building at Pryazovskyi State Technical University one of the oldest educational institutions in the region A shock wave pushed him inside the building Before the war, students in over 200 educational programs there studied engineering, metallurgy, transportation, economics, and information technology.29 Puryshev owned a restaurant called “Evo” next to the campus, where young people played video games and listened to music. But on that morning, there were no students grabbing a meal between classes or catching up with friends. The university was no longer for learning; it was a place to seek safety. Hundreds of people were sheltering in basement classrooms and corridors there, breaking radiators to find drinking water.30 “I went outside and saw the horror,” Puryshev recalled “I started to cry for the first time.” The attack appears to have killed at least two civilians and caused significant damage to the university Puryshev became one of many Mariupol residents who documented damage done to their city in real time They did so to inform the world about what was happening to keep a record of their lived experience to document what they thought would be their final moments “The sky belonged to them,” he said “And they did whatever they wanted.” using satellite imagery and open-source information determined that 86 out of 89 educational facilities in Mariupol were damaged including all 15 university campuses and 71 out of 74 school campuses the once-bustling campus of Pryazovskyi State Technical University has now relocated some 300 kilometers away where students continue learning in person and online Facts about the attack Throughout the Russian offensive on Mariupol the use of explosive weapons in populated areas unleashed death This included shelling from tanks and heavy artillery and airstrikes that continually rained down Explosive weapons can have a large destructive radius or deliver multiple munitions simultaneously They not only kill and injure civilians at the time of attack or “reverberating,” effects by damaging infrastructure The devastating effect of these weapons was laid bare at Marinska Balka Street 67 a 10-minute walk from the Pryazovskyi State Technical University There stood a community of single-family homes with colorful metal gates nestled between trees and the city’s tramway A bright red tram ran on tracks past the neighborhood Survivors say a number of attacks destroyed at least 15 homes there Around midnight on March 10, 2022, Vladyslav was sleeping in the basement of his home with his family when he heard something hit the ground above them.31 Around the same time, his neighbor, Solomiia, a doctor, heard an aircraft, followed by a loud explosion, a bright light, and a blast wave.32 The ceiling collapsed onto Vladyslav’s sleeping family “The garden shed had been blown into the living room and one of the living room doors was destroyed,” he said “The windows and doors were gone.” The family emerged unscathed “I helped a young man and his mother-in-law escape from the [neighbor’s] house,” he said “But the young man’s wife and her sister were screaming as they were trapped under the collapsed roof Facts about the attack Solomiia grabbed a cloth for a tourniquet and rushed outside He begged Solomiia to save the 12-year-old girl next to him whose her legs were crushed by a wall Solomiia was able to save the man’s life The community around Marinska Balka Street 67 was one of many damaged by explosive weapons as well as verification of photographs and videos posted online we determined that 54 percent of buildings (4,884 out of 9,043) we surveyed in the part of central Mariupol where we focused our damage analysis were damaged or destroyed Ninety-three percent of high-rise buildings (433 out of 477) were damaged as well as almost half of single-story homes In June 2022, a journalist with a Russian government broadcaster posted a video to social media showing workers in hazmat suits walking through the once cozy Marinska Balka Street neighborhood.33 They walked past a crumpled blue bicycle and the gutted remains of homes that once lined the street carrying bodies that had been there for months residents watched as their communities became battlegrounds and Despite the danger outside, Stanislav decided to leave his home near the seaside on March 8, 2022, to deliver food to a friend with a disability. The five-story building, more than a kilometer and a half from the single-family homes around Marinska Balka Street 67,34 stood within a city neighborhood surrounded by banks Stanislav and his friend were smoking downstairs with the sound of explosions in the distance standing in front of a three-story building “Suddenly we heard a sound of something coming down from the sky,” he said I also didn’t see any soldiers or any vehicles.” as the roof of the nearby building collapsed returning 10 minutes later to see if anyone was injured “I saw five bodies on the ground,” he said He realized it was the three women and two children he had seen just moments before Facts about the attack Stanislav didn’t want to leave the bodies where they had fallen He and a friend dragged the children across the street it was an unmarked grave holding children’s maimed bodies Faced with an onslaught of fighting, many people were unable to bury loved ones or other victims. For some, a makeshift grave was a shallow pit dug next to a residential building with a cross fashioned out of wood, or a children’s football field. For others, it was a trench for 200 bodies dug in haste as the war’s front line crept closer.35 Death was everywhere in Mariupol; it was impossible to avoid The thought of dying scared Rostyslav, a 46-year-old boiler operator who helped maintain Mariupol’s heating network. But on March 22, he was hungry.36 And that meant going outside to cook borshch a classic mid-century building with high ceilings and large windows just next to the Drama Theater I heard an attack hit the other side of the building the side facing the theater,” he said Facts about the attack A man ran out of the building saying it had been hit to an apartment now in ruins on the third floor a couple in their thirties with whom he had been sheltering in the basement Denis and Asya had gone up to their apartment just before the attack to collect some belongings with their grandparents in the shelter below When Rostyslav entered the destroyed apartment he found Denis and Asya in their bathroom under a collapsed wall Asya “died in my arms,” said Rostyslav and he was in shock.” Rostyslav dug him out A nurse administered intravenous (IV) fluids Rostyslav placed their bodies together on the sofa It was too dangerous to bury them; the shelling was constant “We realized we had to escape as soon as possible,” he said Rostyslav and the other men wept for the people they could not save He was one of the fortunate ones: during the first half of March 2022 it was nearly impossible for civilians to leave the besieged city with evacuation attempts repeatedly called off at the last minute Ukrainian authorities also accused Russian forces of blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the city a reported ceasefire agreement on March 14 allowed tens of thousands of people to escape Mariupol in cars for Ukrainian-held Zaporizhzhia in the second half of March and April Those fortunate enough to have working vehicles met at places like Myru Avenue 42 to join hundreds of cars that wove through the countryside as they tried to make it to relative safety The journey of less than 300 kilometers often took two or three days as they passed dozens of checkpoints manned by Russian and Russia-aligned officials who often searched It was especially difficult for older people and those with serious injuries to make the journey It was only on April 30 that the first official evacuations of civilians from Mariupol to Ukrainian-held territory took place with further evacuations the following week involving the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross as bodies began to decompose and the smell overpowered parts of the city “Seeing dead bodies became the new normal in Mariupol,” said Olena who survived multiple attacks on her building before making it into an evacuation convoy Remains were being pulled from the rubble as late as February 2023, said Oleg Morgun, Mariupol’s mayor installed by Russian occupation forces.40 Thousands of people died during the assault on and siege of Mariupol and in the months that followed including those killed during attacks and many who died because they did not have access to clean water or adequate health care Based on our analysis of five mass burial sites in and around Mariupol at least 10,284 people -an unknown number of soldiers among them-were buried in these graves between March 2022 and February 2023 This is the minimum number of people buried during this period and is most likely a significant underestimate of the total number of people who died during this period given that the remains of some victims may have disappeared in the rubble of destroyed buildings and some of the injured or sick may have died or been buried outside of the city It will probably take many more years to get a full accounting of all those from Mariupol who were killed or died during this period SITU Research and Truth Hounds identified four cemeteries in the city that saw a significant increase in the number of graves and where thousands were buried in individual and trench-like graves: Starokrymske We also identified hundreds of burials in a cemetery just outside of the city who has only found one of her loved ones – little Arina – out of four relatives killed in Mytropolytska Street 98 assumes the rest of her family is buried in one of these cemeteries “I feel their presence,” she says the collective trauma of losing so many people has been compounded by what they say is a loss of identity Mariupol’s iconic Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater was a place of cultural celebration The arched entrance was topped by a stone carving of men and women carrying instruments a celebration of the region’s culture Residents gathered outside every holiday season became a bunker overnight after the Russian attack on the city began hundreds of people were sheltering inside the theater the word “дети,” or “deti,” written on the pavement in huge white script was visible to any passing aircraft For days they had entered and exited the theater and received aid from Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers out front “I felt a sudden flow of air and then something in my eyes and mouth,” she said holding onto a friend in disbelief.” The attack destroyed the central part of the roof as well as the central part of the northern and southern walls “I saw an older woman crawl slowly from the basement,” Tkachenko said “I went outside and saw a young blonde woman covered in blood There was debris everywhere and I saw a leg sticking out of it in one place and a hand in another place.” Our research team documented that at least 15 people were killed as a result of the attack but the total number has not been determined Facts about the attack occupying Russian forces demolished most of the Drama Theater Two-story portraits of classical Russian and Ukrainian writers and historical figures have decorated the scaffolding: the poet Alexander Pushkin the celebrated literary figure Taras Shevchenko long considered a symbol of Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty Our analysis shows that at least 66 high-rise apartment buildings damaged during the siege had been demolished in central Mariupol as of February 9 former Mytropolytska Street residents reacted to the news alongside a photo and drive-by footage showing a low rubble pile where Mytropolytska Street 98 once stood “Теперь только воспоминания,” wrote one individual: “Now Human Rights Watch reviewed satellite imagery of the site Occupying forces — and workers who are sometimes hired to do the difficult work – have cleared millions of tons of rubble from Mariupol transporting it to dump sites around the city will be used by Russian authorities to rebuild the occupied city Russian authorities expect some 350,000 people – up from the current estimate of about 150,000 – to live in Mariupol by 2025 Hundreds of thousands of Mariupol residents now live outside their city unknown numbers of Mariupol’s original inhabitants remain missing On February 25, 2023, the Kremlin put on a lavish event at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, to mark one year since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Onstage, in front of thousands of cheering onlookers, Russian leaders paraded children from Mariupol, recognized by Mariupol survivors who watched the footage from afar, the Guardian reported the Russian president paid an unexpected visit to Mariupol He walked through Mariupol’s elegant Philharmonic Hall Gone was the orchestra’s lead conductor Also gone were most of the orchestra’s musicians Russian occupation authorities have been portraying reconstruction efforts as a rebirth of the city constructing new buildings feels like erasing their history you have some kind of definite memory with it,” said one Mariupol resident Survivors now circulate information about their former homes and what may become of them if occupying forces plan to repair them or if they will tear them down the raw materials collected by construction teams their gutted frames a reminder of what was lost Occupying forces have changed names of streets and squares replacing some of them with names imposed during the Soviet era: Myru Avenue symbolic of the former Soviet Union and Russian domination of Ukraine Television programming that was in Ukrainian before is now in Russian Internet traffic is routed through Russian servers As in other Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine or who speak out against the war and occupation some displaced and dispersed around the world say they worry the siege and widespread damage done to their city will ultimately be forgotten that they themselves will forget: the bedroom they grew up in who lost her family in the attack on Mytropolytska Street 98 She cherishes the videos on her phone showing her loved ones alive and happy That’s how she remembers Arina Antipenko not as the tiny body she buried in the cold ground It’s where she took long strolls with Khrystyna “The city was beautiful,” she says “This is the city of my children.” Join us to make a difference in Ukraine’s war-torn landscape and engage with human rights organizations Act now → Download selected archive We thank the many individuals who made this research possible We also acknowledge the individuals who documented the destruction of Mariupol uploading photos and videos to social media This documentation enabled our team to report on incidents with a higher level of accuracy and nuance Research and writing at Human Rights Watch by: Sophia Jones Research at Truth Hounds by: Viktoriia Amelina Reviewed at Human Rights Watch by: Fred Abrahams Art direction and development by: Grace Choi and John Emerson 1 Alessandra Prentice and Natalia Zinets, “Russia’s ‘victory’ in Mariupol turns city’s dreams to rubble,” Reuters, April 26, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-victory-mariupol-turns-citys-dreams-rubble-2022-04-26/ (accessed July 11 2 “Meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu,” Presidential Executive Office news release, April 21, 2022, http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68254 (accessed July 11 3 Mariupol Now (@mariupolnow), post to Telegram channel, June 13, 2022, https://t.me/mariupolnow/13391 (accessed December 12 4 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Dmytro Lastenko 6 Now-deleted account, post to Telegram channel, March 15, 2022, https://t.me/mitropolitskaya_giguli/1409 (accessed July 11 7 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pavlo 8 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Danylo 9 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Stefaniia 10 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pavlo 11 Human Rights Watch interview with Maryna 12 Ibid 13 Погибшие, Память, Мариуполь (@mariupolRIP), https://t.me/mariupolRIP (accessed April 24 14 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pavlo 15 Homepage, Mariupol Medkontrol, https://mariupol.medkontrol.pro/mtmo-zdorovya-rebenka-i-zhenshhiny (accessed July 12 16 Human Rights Watch interview with Rustam 17 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Demian 18 Ibid 19 “High Commissioner updates the Human Rights Council on Mariupol, Ukraine,” OHCHR, June 16, 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/06/high-commissioner-updates-human-rights-council-mariupol-ukraine (accessed July 11 20 Alex Stambaugh, Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych, “Pregnant woman and her baby die after Mariupol maternity hospital bombing,” CNN, March 14, 2022, https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/14/europe/mariupol-pregnant-woman-baby-death-intl/index.html (accessed July 12 21 Human Rights Watch interview with Diana 22 Human Rights Watch interview with Rustam 23 Human Rights Watch interview with Rustam 24 Human Rights Watch interview with Diana 25 Human Rights Watch interview with Viktoriia 26 Human Rights Watch interview with Diana 27 Ibid 28 Human Rights Watch interview with Mykhailo Puryshev 29 Human Rights Watch interview by email with Balalaeva Olena Yuriivna 30 Human Rights Watch interview with Davyd 31 Human Rights Watch interview with Vladyslav 32 Human Rights Watch interview with Solomiia 33 “Мариуполь/Живые и мертвые,” June 8, 2022, video clip, Dzen, https://dzen.ru/video/watch/62a093267933a4355bf38f6f?utm_referrer=statics.teams.cdn.office.net (accessed December 12 34 Human Rights Watch interview with Stanislav 35 Human Rights Watch interview with Vaagn Mnatsakanian 36 Human Rights Watch Interview with Rostyslav 37 Mariupol City Council (Маріупольська міська рада) (@mariupolrada), post to Telegram channel, March 15, 2022, https://t.me/mariupolrada/8861 (accessed July 11 38 Mariupol City Council (@mariupolrada), post to Telegram channel, March 18, 2022, https://t.me/mariupolrada/8893 (accessed July 11 39 Human Rights Watch Interviews with Aryna and Olena 41 Human Rights Watch interview with Maksym 42 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Nataliia Tkachenko 44 Митрополитская, р-н “Жигули” (@mitropolitskaya_giguli), post to Telegram channel, May 27, 2023, https://t.me/mitropolitskaya_giguli/12848 (accessed July 11 45 Mariupol 24(@mariupol24tv), post to Telegram channel, February 10, 2023, https://t.me/mariupol24tv/20566 (accessed September 4 48 Official Website of the President of Russia, “Рабочая поездка в Мариуполь,” video report, March 19, 2023, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70742 50 Единая Россия. Официально (@er_molnia), post to Telegram channel, June 28, 2022, https://t.me/er_molnia/4221 (accessed January 10 Lawyers say strategy of denying food and services to people in Ukrainian city during siege could amount to war crime Russia engaged in a “deliberate pattern” of starvation tactics during the 85-day siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in early 2022 according to a fresh analysis submitted to the international criminal court The conclusion is at the heart of a dossier in the process of being submitted to the ICC in The Hague by the lawyers Global Rights Compliance working in conjunction with the Ukrainian government It argues that Russia and its leaders intended to kill and harm large numbers of civilians It has been estimated that 22,000 people were killed during the encirclement and capture of the city of Mariupol at the beginning of the war in Ukraine gas or electricity within days of the siege as temperatures fell below minus 10C Read more“What we could see is that there were four phases to the Russian assault starting with attacks on civilian infrastructure Then humanitarian evacuations were denied and even attacked while aid was prevented from getting through,” Murdoch said “In the third phase, the remaining critical infrastructure was targeted civilians terrorised with aid and water points bombed Russia engaged in strategic attacks to destroy or capture any remaining infrastructure items,” she said demonstrated that Russia had planned to capture the frontline city without mercy for its civilian population which was estimated at 450,000 before the full invasion began in 24 February 2022 The dossier concludes that an estimated 90% of healthcare facilities and homes in the city were destroyed or damaged during the siege and food distribution points were bombed as well as humanitarian evacuation routes Given the importance of Mariupol and the centralisation of Russian decision-making culpability for the deaths of thousands of civilians went to the top “Vladimir Putin is culpable,” Murdoch said “and echelons of the Russian military leadership” The ICC accepts third-party submissions although it does not necessarily act on them Starvation and the denial of amenities necessary for civilian life are considered war crimes but this remains a relatively new area of international law and so far no alleged perpetrator has been prosecuted Last month, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the ICC, applied for an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and minister of defence, Yoav Gallant arguing that the two had deliberately inflicted starvation on Palestinians in Gaza – a claim rejected by Israel “Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival,” Khan said Three Hamas leaders were also subject to similar applications relating to the war that began with the attack by the group on Israel on 7 October Murdoch said Khan’s applications for the arrest warrants linked to the conflict in Gaza “were the first of their kind” relating to starvation as a war crime and had highlighted the issue in the minds of lawyers and prosecutors “What it showed is where the ICC’s thinking is,” she said The lawyers said initially they were unsure as to how easy it would be to create a war crimes dossier for Mariupol because the Russian occupation made evidence-gathering difficult despite the fierce fighting and high numbers of casualties But they developed a technique that used a specially created algorithm to map the destruction of specific locations with what explosives experts assessed as Russian attacks by Kateryna DenisovaThe footage showing the city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast after the explosions on July 12 (Petro Andriushchenko/Telegram)There was a series of explosions in Russian-occupied Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast on July 12 an adviser to the city's exiled mayor Andriushchenko shared photos and videos showing plumes of smoke rising over Mariupol Explosions near a city's airport were captured in videos shared on Telegram with another detonation reported later by Telegram channels Russia and the Ukrainian military have not yet commented on the reports In early July, the Atesh partisan group claimed it had sabotaged a key railway connection between Russia's Rostov-on-Don and the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol used by the Russian military which was the scene of intense fighting in the spring of 2022 is becoming a new Russian supply port according to unconfirmed reports from local officials Ukrainian media is carrying reports from the Russian social media channel Telegram of the arrival of the first tanker as Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined terms for a cease-fire that was immediately rejected by Ukraine The mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko is quoted as saying Russian forces are using the port city as a logistics base He reports that the Russians have begun using the remaining infrastructure for military purposes and are laying new railway tracks an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol posted pictures of an unidentified tanker at the port He reports it is the first time that Russia has sent a tanker into the occupied port “Don’t pay attention to the size of the tanker One of these is enough to supply the front for two or three days taking into account tank columns,” he writes in the caption of the photo “This is about full preparation for the launch of the railway to the port.… This is either for diesel locomotives for long distances or for their armored cargo There are no options,” the message says he also reported the movement of equipment in the direction of Berdyansk through Mariupol He said they had spotted “dozens of trucks with ammunition and manpower.” At the beginning of the invasion in February 2022 reported that Russia had launched an amphibious assault on Ukraine's Sea of Azov coastline near Mariupol The city was the tenth-largest in Ukraine and the second-largest city in the Donetsk region before the start of the war Ukraine accused the Russians of stealing grain stored in warehouses Several ships were damaged or destroyed in the seaport Italian shipping company Fratelli Cosulich reported that one of its bulkers was trapped in the port and was only released in November 2022 after months of fighting in the region The Russian Empire's seizure of the territories on the northern coast of the Black Sea the ability to use the fertile land resources of the Azov Sea region and the development of a network of ports on the shores of the two seas allowed it to become an important supplier of grain to Western Europe the development of port cities on the shores of the Azov and Black Seas is closely linked to the activities and trade of various ethnic groups that were relocated to the occupied lands or deliberately moved to the cities to develop their trade businesses The history of Mariupol's development as a port city is linked to the resettlement of Christians from the Crimea to the territory of the modern city Mariupol Mariupol port-city was the only one of the eleven ports on the Azov and northern Black Sea coasts on whose territory only the descendants of immigrants from Crimea had official residence for 79 years and in whose administration for more than 80 years only Greeks participated through the Mariupol Greek Court the next stage of Mariupol's development as a port city began with the most influential merchants and citizens of various ethnic groups involved in its management The research aims to analyze the role of the Greek population in Mariupol and the development of Mariupol as a port-city during the period of special privileges granted to Christians in 1780-1869 The city port is seen as a dynamic unit responding to changes in the political situation and the international trade market which in turn influenced the hinterland economy Svitlana Arabadzhy is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Archaeology Conservation and History at the University of Oslo and an Associate Professor at the Department of History and Archaeology at Mariupol State University where she teaches a course on the history of the Greeks in Ukraine Her current research project “Becoming Greek South of Ukraine 1774-2021: The History of Ukraine through its Greek Minority Between Local and Transnational Contexts (UAGREEKS)” has received funding through the MSCA4Ukraine project and is financed by the European Union She is currently working on a monograph on the history of Mariupol as a Port City by Kateryna Denisova, The Kyiv Independent news deskThe Azovstal Steel and Iron Works facility on the horizon from a floating dock at the none-operating Azov Ship-Repair Factory at the Port of Mariupol in Mariupol before Russia's full-scale invasion on Jan 2022 (Christopher Occhicone/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesRussia has stolen more than 180,000 tons of Ukrainian grain through the port of the occupied city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast alone Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a government meeting on Oct Already by mid-2023, Russia is believed to have stolen up to 6 million metric tons of grain harvested in occupied Ukrainian territories Russia continues to use food "as an element of aggression." Kyiv has lost large swathes of farmlands in Ukraine's south and east to Russian occupation and damge from war Ukraine's exports from January to September amounted to almost 100 million tons "In other words, we exported as much in nine months as we did during the entire last year," Shmyhal said Evidence compiled by human rights law firm Global Rights Compliance last year showed that Moscow prepared to steal grain supplies and starve the Ukrainian population months before the full-scale invasion Russia's war against Ukraine has also threatened food security worldwide Ukraine was the world's largest wheat producer before the invasion The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep The current conflict is more than one country fighting to take over another; it is — in the words of one U.S official — a shift in "the world order."Here are some helpful stories to make sense of it all A Russian serviceman patrols the destroyed part of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works in Ukraine's port city of Mariupol on Wednesday The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is now in Russian hands after more than two months of bitter fighting and constant Russian shelling that destroyed massive swaths of the city and killed thousands of civilians Ukraine formally declared an end to its combat mission in Mariupol late Monday Evacuations of Ukrainian soldiers from the Azovstal steel plant It is unclear how many Ukrainian soldiers remain in Mariupol it is overseen by our military and intelligence The most influential international mediators are involved," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Wednesday Ukrainian officials said this week that they expect the evacuated soldiers to eventually be exchanged in prisoner of war swaps But some Russian politicians have protested that idea calling the Mariupol defenders "Nazi criminals." The fight for Mariupol had been a source of morale for Ukrainians as a "David and Goliath story," said Rita Konaev an expert on the Russian military at Georgetown University Ukrainians had celebrated the small number of soldiers who managed to keep the city from falling into Russian hands despite near-constant shelling and Russia's firepower advantage for holding the fort of Mariupol for such a long time," said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko and the region of Eastern Ukraine called Donbas much of which was already controlled by Russian-backed separatists Most of the current fighting is taking place in the Donbas region Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the "independence" of two enclaves there prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Those are the two areas — so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics — that have faced Russian aggression since 2014 So taking Mariupol is part of the campaign in the south and the southeast to connect the Russian-held areas Russia has solidified its land bridge to Crimea and now controls the entire north shore of the Sea of Azov The central district of Mariupol on Wednesday two days after Ukraine says it ended its combat mission in the city the Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol had been cut off the rest of Ukraine's armed forces for months Only a few thousand were estimated to be left in the city by the time they were backed up into Azovstal The country is pursuing the return of those soldiers via prisoner swaps "I want to emphasize that Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive," Zelenskyy said earlier this week Mariupol was an important economic center for Ukraine because of its status as a port city it is a major site for exporting Ukrainian steel and grain That status has already been altered by war Army Special Forces who has trained Ukrainian forces it's not able to currently produce for the war effort The major impact would come if a negotiated settlement partitions off part of Ukraine said Collins: "Ukraine's not going to want to do that after 2014 and 2015 [when Russia essentially took part of Eastern Ukraine] preventing Ukraine's access to the Sea of Azov it will damage Ukraine's finances and economic sustainability hindering the country's ability to sell and ship its products "It's part of a broader effort to effectively cut Ukraine off from access to the sea which is a really important part of Ukrainian economy and trade," Konaev said Mariupol has been a focus of the Russian military from the beginning of its invasion Russian forces reached Mariupol just days after the invasion began on Feb and they encircled the city by early March Through weeks of intense street fighting and relentless shelling, Russia pushed Ukrainian forces farther and farther back until they were pinned inside the Azovstal plant Russian military officials declared victory in Mariupol after capturing the rest of the city The humanitarian situation inside the city described to NPR by people who fled from March through May Residents leaving Mariupol uniformly described a lack of access to food Many sheltered in basements for weeks on end as shells and airstrikes landed around them constantly Some of the war's most shocking moments have occurred in Mariupol, including the destruction of a maternity hospital and a strike on the city's Drama Theater where more than 1,000 civilians were sheltering As the fighting came to the steel plant, hundreds of civilians were sheltering in the plant's network of underground bunkers and tunnels that date back to the Soviet era. Many were evacuated earlier this month in convoys led by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations I became convinced that the steel plant was going to collapse on us How could it stand up to this kind of bombing?" said Alex Dybko an English teacher who sheltered in the plant for weeks with his wife and son before evacuating to Zaporizhzhia this month A Russian military vehicle painted with the letter Z drives past destroyed houses in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Wednesday Local officials say more than 20,000 civilians have died in the city Ukrainian officials say about 100,000 civilians remain in Mariupol which was home to about 430,000 residents before the war Russia organized the first press tours for foreign journalists to visit the city It has largely been unsafe for the media since the war began officials have said that they believe that Russia could be looking to annex the Donetsk and Luhansk areas of eastern Ukraine this month "We believe that the Kremlin may try to hold sham referenda to try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy This is straight out of the Kremlin's playbook," Michael Carpenter ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The U.S. and its allies recently said they will never recognize redrawn Ukrainian borders Collins says Russia cannot win simply by conquering a certain amount of territory Both nations are going to lose regardless of the outcome It's just a matter of which one loses more," he said Additional reporting by NPR's Joanna Kakissis and Hanna Palamarenko in Zaporizhzhia Become an NPR sponsor War Crimes Inquiry Needed into Massive Loss of Civilian Life Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials should be investigated and appropriately prosecuted for their role in apparent war crimes committed by Russian forces during the fighting there and Russia should provide reparations to victims of laws-of-war violations and their families The 224-page report, “‘Our City Was Gone’: Russia’s Devastation of Mariupol, Ukraine,” an accompanying digital multimedia feature, and a 20-minute video analyze the civilian suffering and damage to thousands of buildings including several hundred high-rise apartments They describe repeated attempts by Ukrainian officials and international agencies to organize official evacuations and aid deliveries in the face of Russian obstruction VAAGN MNATSAKANIAN: “In the first days of the war we had no idea that such a tragedy could take place.”  TETIANA BURAK: “That’s why a lot of people didn’t evacuate.”  MARIUPOL RESIDENT AND HUMANITARIAN VOLUNTEER: “With the onset of the war This is the story of Russia’s assault on Mariupol.  A strategic port city in southeastern Ukraine.  and Truth Hounds used to reconstruct the struggles residents faced as Russian forces took over the city This is Mariupol after Russian forces occupied the city Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine began on February 24 as its forces attacked Ukrainian positions defending Mariupol.  The city was pounded by explosive weapons for weeks.  Much of Mariupol was seriously damaged in the Russian assault Human Rights Watch and SITU Research conducted a detailed damage assessment of the destruction While satellite imagery shows damage to rooftops We used over 850 videos and photos of buildings that we found online and verified to capture the extent of the devastation in the city center Buildings with damage are seen here in red Our analysis shows that 93% of the 477 high-rise apartment buildings in this area were damaged Some of this imagery could help prove war crimes DMYTRO KULYK: “It’s [was] a town with about half a million inhabitants.”  The city center was well-developed.”  the city was becoming modern and vibrant.  It would give them control of one of Ukraine’s largest ports and a land corridor between occupied Crimea to the west and areas Russia had been controlling in Donbas tens of thousands of civilians huddled in shelters and basements to escape Russian bombing and shelling Many people we spoke to relocated to the city center DENYS SHEVTSOV: “Most people moved in all directions But we believe it isn’t safe to stay in the apartment.. Russian forces used a variety of explosive weapons in Mariupol including aerial bombs and ground-launched artillery The use of these weapons in populated areas is the greatest threat to civilians in contemporary armed conflicts and heightens the risk of unlawfully indiscriminate attacks.  HALYNA MOROKHOVSKA: “An aerial bomb hit the dormitory VOICE IN VIDEO: “It’s coming from that side.”  VOICE #2 IN VIDEO: Come into the entryway.. DMYTRO KULYK: “Dead bodies became an ordinary sight for me We were told that seven people died that one day parties have an obligation to do everything feasible to minimize harm to civilians These are the maternity and pediatric units of a hospital that Russian forces bombed on March 9.  witnesses told us that there were no Ukrainian military personnel A deliberate strike on a hospital not being used to carry out attacks harmful to the enemy Humanitarian volunteer Mykhailo Puryshev was about 400 meters from the hospital by Pryazovskysi State Technical University.  MYKHAILO PURYSHEV: “I heard an airplane approaching… And I shouted “Airplanes!” and we all ran.. I saw the full horror of what had happened.”   At least two people were killed on the spot Witnesses said there were no military targets at the university An attack that is not directed at a specific military objective is a laws-of-war violation and a possible war crime Numerous images posted on social media and given to us by witnesses helped us assess the damage to parts of the university campus which in turn cut essential services.  We are absolutely isolated from civilization DMYTRO KULYK: ‘’If you want to wash your hands Then we put the bucket on an open fire and boil the water.”  This is what I call really living it up during the war As long as they don’t make barbecue out of us.”  the city was getting destroyed more and more.”   and videos to track damage across Mariupol We found 86 out of 89 schools and universities were damaged The damage to these facilities devastated health care and education across the city VAAGN MNATSAKANIAN: “Every day we thought about when we could leave But we realized that the city was completely closed off and there was no way to leave.”  multiple attempts to provide safe passage out of the city failed in the face of Russian obstruction Arbitrary restrictions on the evacuation of civilians or the delivery of aid would amount to a violation of the laws of war and possible war crimes.  hundreds of people had gathered at the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater for shelter and in the hope of getting safe passage out of Mariupol Nataliia Tkachenko arrived on March 12 after an attack destroyed her home NATALIIA TKACHENKO: “They gave us a bit of food a cup of boiled water in the morning and evening Only kids were running around because kids will be kids At least 500 people were sheltering at the theater on March 16 Giant Cyrillic letters spelling “children” were painted on the ground in front and at the back of the theater These words were clearly visible on satellite imagery I couldn’t hear anything except the humming and photographs of the theater show that the central part of the roof and the northern and southern walls were destroyed At least 15 people were killed and the total number has not been determined Given the absence of a military target at the theater it appears that Russian forces deliberately attacked civilians Those responsible for war crimes in Mariupol should be held to account By reviewing official Russian government statements we identified 17 military units that took part in the 2022 siege of Mariupol.  Considering the extent of the military operation the highest levels of Russian command likely knew the situation in the city and were involved in the planning and coordination of the actions of the Russian and Russia-affiliated forces.  Those responsible for the conduct of Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol include President Vladimir Putin the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces food and other basic supplies ran low.  MIKHAILO PURYSHEV: “The worst problem was probably not with food or heat And people were just dying because there was none The people who suffered the most were older people and children.”  Others died from health complications due to lack of medicine and clean water There were a lot of people left under the rubble So it remains to be seen how many people died there.”  TETIANA BURAK: “We were horrified at what we saw because there were burnt multi-story houses and bodies in the streets.”  HALYNA MOROKHOVSKA: “It was impossible to count them because people were buried under the debris Many were buried in a makeshift trench grave in the Old City Cemetery.  VAAGN MNATSAKANIAN: “We filled one trench [with bodies] completely These bodies from the trench grave and many other makeshift graves across the city were exhumed and reburied in the city's cemeteries when Russian forces took over We estimated the minimum number of people killed by fighting or who died of poor conditions we counted graves in two types of burial sites we counted individual graves visible in high resolution satellite imagery We also estimated the number of bodies buried in trench-type graves We verified footage at two cemeteries which allowed us to count the plaques We then used this sample size to extrapolate to other parts of the cemeteries In five cemeteries in and around Mariupol between March 2022 and February 2023 We do not know how many of these people were civilians Considering average annual death rates in Mariupol we calculated more than 8,000 people would not have died were it not for the attack on the city This is likely a significant underestimation of the total number of dead as many graves contained multiple bodies and the remains of others were likely buried in the rubble and taken away during demolition efforts.  With the city still under Russian occupation and much of the physical evidence destroyed the full death toll may never be known.  tens of thousands of residents found their way out of the city at great personal risk beginning in mid-March.  DENYS SHEVSTOV: “We were hoping war suddenly will stop and finally we realized this is not going to happen Russian forces had full control of the city.  The bombs might have stopped now but the city’s tragedy is far from over.  and the losses that Mariupol’s residents experienced will reverberate for years to come.  DMYTRO KULYK: “Mariupol is a city that has become hell.”  TETIANA BURAK: “People should know what is happening.”  VAAGN MNATSAKANIAN: “We realized that no matter how much we want our pre-war life Russian forces are demolishing buildings and constructing new ones Russia is also replacing Ukrainian culture with its own.  the survivors of Mariupol need reparations for their losses and the impact on their mental health.  Russian officials and military commanders credibly implicated in war crimes committed in the city need to be brought to justice.  NATALIIA TKACHENKO: “When I got to Ukrainian territory “Russian forces’ devastation of Mariupol stands out as one of the worst chapters of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” said Ida Sawyer crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch “International bodies and governments committed to justice should focus on investigating the senior Russian officials who appear linked to overseeing war crimes in this once vibrant city.” “Despite the challenges of investigating war crimes in areas made inaccessible by Russian occupation, we and our partners have spent nearly two years uncovering the truth about the horrific crimes committed by Russian forces in Mariupol,” said Roman Avramenko, executive director of Truth Hounds. “This investigation aims to ensure that these crimes will never be forgotten and that the perpetrators will face justice.” The analysis of satellite imagery, photos, and videos of the city’s main cemeteries found that more than 10,000 people were buried in Mariupol between March 2022 and February 2023. By comparing the growth in graves with the city’s normal mortality rate, the groups estimate that at least 8,000 people died from fighting or war-related causes, though how many of those were civilians remains unknown. The total number of dead may be significantly higher: some graves contained multiple bodies and the remains of others were most likely buried in rubble. Some may remain in makeshift graves, and others may have died later of war-related causes. Some relatives of those missing are still looking for their loved ones.   Thousands of people were injured, many of whom lost limbs, eyesight, hearing, or memory, including from traumatic brain injuries caused by explosions. The report identifies 17 units of Russian and Russia-affiliated forces that were operating in Mariupol in March and April 2022, at the height of the fighting. On December 4, 2023, Human Rights Watch sent the Russian government a summary of the report’s findings and a list of questions but, as of February 1, had not received a response. Since occupying the city, Russian authorities have been constructing new high-rise apartment buildings as part of their stated plan to rebuild and redevelop Mariupol by 2035. An occupying power should clear debris and demolish unsafe structures to protect the population. However, in the absence of independent investigators, the Russian government is erasing physical evidence at hundreds of potential crime scenes. Occupying forces are also stripping away markers of Ukrainian identity, including by enforcing a Russian school curriculum and renaming streets. They are requiring residents to obtain Russian passports to apply for certain jobs and benefits. In Mariupol, like elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian and affiliated forces extensively used explosive weapons with wide-area effects, including tank shelling and heavy artillery, multi-barrel rocket launchers, missiles, and airstrikes in populated areas. The use of such weapons in populated areas, with devastating impacts on civilians and civilian infrastructure, heightens concerns of unlawfully indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. “Mariupol stands as a testament to the cruel destruction and suffering caused by explosive weapons in cities and towns across the world,” Sawyer said. “All governments should support justice for crimes committed in Ukraine and sign the international declaration condemning the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.” Attacks on Schools and Military Use of Schools in Ukraine Get updates on human rights issues from around the globe. Join our movement today. Get the world’s top human rights news, every day. Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808 Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. water and medical facilities as tactic of war before capturing strategic port city in 2022 says report by human rights group Global Rights Compliance I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Russian forces deliberately starved Ukrainians in Mariupol as a tactic of war by targeting their water food and medical facilities before taking the strategic port city in 2022 according to an investigation by an international human rights group Satellite imagery showing evidence of attacks on civilian infrastructure in the city, including food distribution centres, was collected by Global Rights Compliance’s Starvation Mobile Justice Team, and relate to the first 85 days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before the fall of Mariupol the rights group said its investigators analysed reams of satellite imagery as well as pictures public statements and digital data to make the assessment The investigation took about a year to complete Civilians who couldn’t escape “died silent deaths inside Mariupol” a Ukrainian legal advisor on the Starvation Mobile Justice Team The disadvantaged section of the population was hit particularly hard “A child on the autism spectrum could not eat canned food because of his autism Canned food was the only food available in the shelter where he was with his mother The war magnified how horrible it is to starve when some people still have access to the meagre supply food left,” Ms Matskiv said The Rome Statute considers “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” in the context of an international armed conflict as a war crime provided that the perpetrators deprived civilians of “objects indispensable to their survival” Naomi Prodeau, who served as international lawyer on the Starvation Mobile Justice Team, said they would take their report about Russia’s starvation tactics to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and build a larger war crimes case against Russian president Vladimir Putin. “I urge the International Criminal Court to consider these crimes, and the collective punishment against innocent Ukrainian civilians, in pursuit of justice to Russian leadership all the way up to the Kremlin,” said Catriona Murdoch, the human rights group’s vice president and director of its starvation and humanitarian crisis division. Mr Putin and Russian military leaders could be indicted if the international court were to pursue cases related to starvation as a war crime or crime against humanity, according to the Atlantic Council, a think tank in the US. As they lay siege to Mariupol between February and May 2022, Russian forces attacked its energy, water, food and healthcare infrastructure, Ms Murdoch said. They “intended to starve” the Ukranians in the city. The Russians bombed at least 22 supermarkets which had been turned into food distribution centres and targeted shelters to instil fear among fleeing citizens, the report, seen by The Independent, said. They also knocked out water pumping stations, forcing some people to take water from puddles, radiators and melted snow. Satellite imagery collected by the investigators also showed that Russian fighter aircraft deliberately attacked the Mariupol drama theatre, where hundreds of people were sheltering, with “two 500kg bombs” on 16 March. The Russian word for “children”, painted in white lettering at the front and back of the theatre, can be clearly seen in the satellite images, the markings signifying the location as being civilian. The attack killed at least 600 people, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. Another set of satellite images from mid-March 2022 revealed damage to key transformer substations that supplied power to both residential and industrial grids in the city. Russian forces hit the Neptun swimming pool complex, which has been turned into a food distribution point, despite the presence of hundreds of civilians. “Satellite imagery analysed by SMJT establishes the presence of hundreds of civilians at Neptun less than 48 hours before its destruction, by weaponry likely of the same type to that used in the attack against the drama theatre,” the report said. The attacks affected at least 450,000 civilians in Mariupol, cutting their access to water, electricity and gas. Shortly after the Russians captured the city, Mr Putin boasted that it had been “liberated” after nearly two months of siege. In the first days of the invasion, Russian forces targeted Mariupol’s energy and water facilities and struck a major powerline that caused a power blackout in half of the city, the report said, adding that this “deprived women, men and children of heat, potable water, and access to information, which residents described as a ‘harrowing’ situation”. In the second week, the Russians successfully encircled and laid a “porous” siege to the city. They intensified the bombing, forcing up to 200,000 people to flee. The remaining civilians were “systematically vetted by pro-Russian forces for their loyalties to the Russian State apparatus, through a compulsory security screening process known as ‘filtration’,” the report claimed. Although Moscow has taken firm control of Mariupol since, Ukraine has refused to acknowledge its defeat. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies govt and politics","score":0.819527},{"label":"/society/crime/personal offense/torture","score":0.728752},{"label":"/law govt and politics/armed forces","score":0.698844},{"label":"/law new report claims","description":"Russians targeted civilian food Which language would you like to use this site in An extensive investigation by Amnesty International has concluded that Russian military forces committed a war crime when they struck the Mariupol drama theatre in Ukraine in March killing at least dozen people and likely many more In a new report, ‘Children’: The Attack on the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine the organization documents how the Russian military likely deliberately targeted the theatre despite knowing hundreds of civilians were sheltering there on 16 March Amnesty International’s Crisis Response team interviewed numerous survivors and collected extensive digital evidence concluding that the attack was almost certainly carried out by Russian fighter aircraft which dropped two 500kg bombs that struck close to each other and detonated simultaneously analysis of satellite imagery and interviews with dozens of witnesses we concluded that the strike was a clear war crime committed by Russian forces,” said Agnès Callamard “Many people were injured and killed in this merciless attack Their deaths were likely caused by Russian forces deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians and all others with jurisdiction over crimes committed during this conflict must investigate this attack as a war crime All those responsible must be held accountable for causing such death and destruction.” Amnesty International commissioned a physicist to build a mathematical model of the detonation to determine the net explosive weight (NEW) of the blast which would be required to cause the level of destruction seen at the theatre The conclusion was that the bombs had a NEW of 400-800kg Based on available evidence regarding the aerial bombs in Russia’s arsenal Amnesty International believes the weapons were most likely two 500kg bombs of the same model which would yield a total NEW of 440-600kg The most likely Russian aircraft to have conducted the strike are multi-role fighters – such as the Su-25 or Su-34 – which were based at nearby Russian airfields and frequently seen operating over southern Ukraine Amnesty International examined several alternative theories about who was responsible for the attack the investigation ultimately found that a deliberate air strike targeted at a civilian object was the most plausible explanation Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022 civilians began fleeing their homes as cities and towns were targeted by military attacks In besieged Mariupol in the Donetsk region the theatre became a safe haven for civilians seeking shelter from fighting was a hub for the distribution of medicine and a designated gathering point for people hoping to be evacuated via humanitarian corridors The building was clearly recognizable as a civilian object perhaps more so than any other location in the city Locals had also written the giant Cyrillic letters “Дети” – Russian for “children” – on forecourts on either side of the building which would have been clearly visible to Russian pilots and also on satellite imagery Russian bombs struck the theatre shortly after 10am on 16 March producing a large explosion which caused the roof and huge portions of two main walls to collapse hundreds of civilians were in and around the theatre Amnesty International believes that at least a dozen people were killed by the strike and likely many more and that many others were seriously injured This estimate is lower than previous counts reflecting the fact that large numbers of people had left the theatre during the two days prior to the attack and most of those who remained were in the theatre’s basement and other areas that were protected from the full brunt of the blast they destroyed the adjacent interior walls along the sides of the performance space and then breached the exterior load-bearing walls creating two main debris fields on the north-eastern and south-western sides of the building Both debris fields are visible on satellite imagery taken just minutes after the strike He told Amnesty International: “It all happened in front of our eyes We were 200 or 300 metres away [when] the explosion happened… I could hear a plane and the sound of bombs dropping Then we saw the roof [of the theatre] rise up.” said: “I was walking down the street leading to the drama theatre… I could hear the noise of a plane… but at that time I didn’t really pay attention because [planes] were constantly flying around… I saw the roof of the building explode… It jumped 20 metres and then collapsed… then I saw a lot of smoke and rubble… I couldn’t believe my eyes because the theatre was a sanctuary was also close to the theatre at the time of the attack He told Amnesty International: “We heard planes… I saw two missiles fire from one plane towards the theatre.” I couldn’t believe my eyes because the theatre was a sanctuary interviewees provided Amnesty International with the full names of four people who were killed: Mykhailo Hrebenetskyi They also gave the forenames of three other people they believe were killed Several survivors and other witnesses reported seeing dead bodies of people they could not identify and it is likely that many fatalities remain unreported A woman in her late teens was sheltering in the basement with her boyfriend and her mother when the bombs struck She told Amnesty International: “In a second Everything jumped up… People started screaming We grabbed our documents and left… Some people were not as lucky.” Yehven Hrebenetskyi found the body of his father Mykhailo inside the concert hall Yehven told Amnesty International: “There were many injured people… There were police trying to pull people out of the rubble… At first His body was covered with bricks… I didn’t want my mom to see.” Dmytro Symonenko was with Lubov Svyrydova moments before she died from her injuries He told Amnesty International: “She was severely injured She managed to crawl from the rubble… she asked us to remember her name Many other interviewees told Amnesty International they had seen bloodied bodies and dismembered body parts in the rubble of the devastated building following the strike International humanitarian law (IHL) is the body of law which principally governs armed conflict A core principle of IHL is that parties to an armed conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and members of the military and military objects Military objects can be targeted; it is unlawful to target civilians or civilian objects members of the military are required to take steps to ensure that they are reasonably certain they are not targeting civilians and civilian objects None of the 28 survivors Amnesty International interviewed nor any of the other witnesses around the theatre on the day of the attack provided any information to indicate that the Ukrainian military was using the theatre as a base for operations The civilian character of the theatre and the presence of numerous civilians was evident in the weeks prior to the attack The nature of the attack – the strike’s location inside the building as well as the likely weapon used – and the absence of any potentially legitimate military objective nearby strongly suggests that the theatre was the intended target the attack likely constitutes a deliberate attack on a civilian object Russian forces have been on a well-documented and deliberate killing spree of civilians in Ukraine,” said Agnès Callamard “Thorough investigations are urgently needed in order to hold perpetrators accountable for the serious injury and loss of civilian life they caused as well as for the extensive damage to civilian infrastructure.” Amnesty International gathered and analysed available credible evidence related to the attack on the theatre This included 53 first-hand testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the attack and its aftermath 28 of whom were inside or adjacent to the theatre at the time Amnesty International also analysed satellite imagery and radar data from immediately before and shortly after the attack; authenticated photographic and video material provided by survivors and witnesses; and two sets of architectural plans of the theatre This was supported by an open-source investigation by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab who examined and verified 46 photos and videos of the strike that were shared on social media as well as an additional 143 photos and videos that were privately shared with researchers Amnesty International’s ongoing documentation of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed during the war in Ukraine is available here people in Ukraine are facing a catastrophic human rights crisis Take action to demand that the Russian authorities stop this act of aggression and protect civilians now If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you and courage is impossible without charity," said Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk Ordinary of the Diocese of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine The exclusive event for the diplomatic corps took place on Wednesday organized by the British and Ukrainian Embassies to the Holy See representatives and collaborators from various departments of the Roman Curia The event began with a welcome speech from British Ambassador who thanked the international community for its support for his country and then handed over to Bishop Pavlo as the city of Mariupol is part of his diocese which covers the first three weeks of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is narrated in first person by war correspondent Mstyslav Chernov who documents the early days of the siege of Mariupol and illustrates his experience who was present and addressed the audience after the screening the horrors they witnessed are only part of what continues to happen The spectators left the Synod Hall in deep silence The initiative served as yet another reminder of the sufferings caused by the war with children and the elderly being the primary victims Thank you for reading our article. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to our daily newsletter. Just click here Residents Describe Harsh Conditions During Russian Attack Thirty-two civilians who managed to escape southeastern Ukraine’s besieged city of Mariupol last week told Human Rights Watch how they struggled to survive in below-freezing temperatures as Russian forces relentlessly attacked the city and children sheltering in basements with little to no access to running water or mobile phone service since the siege began on March 2 Russian forces laying siege to Mariupol should immediately ensure that civilians in Mariupol are not being denied access to items essential for their survival such as water and should facilitate safe passage to areas under control of Ukrainian forces for civilians who choose to leave the city “Mariupol residents have described a freezing hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings,” said Belkis Wille senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch “And these are the lucky ones who were able to escape leaving behind thousands who are cut off from the world in the besieged city.” The current death toll in Mariupol remains unknown. An assistant to the city’s mayor, Petro Andryushchenko, told Human Rights Watch on March 20 that more than 3,000 civilians may have died since the fighting began, but he said the exact number was unclear. Local authorities have reported that at least 80 percent of the city’s residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed Human Rights Watch has not been able to verify these figures or to assess how many of those killed were civilians Human Rights Watch interviewed 30 Mariupol residents in person at a makeshift registration center in Zaporizhzhia a city about 220 kilometers northwest of Mariupol They were among several thousand Mariupol residents who fled the city on March 15 and 16 in personally arranged convoys with private cars on journeys that took between 24 and 72 hours Human Rights Watch also interviewed a couple in Zaporizhzhia who were waiting for their two children to arrive from Mariupol at least 3,200 people from Mariupol made it to Zaporizhzhia according to two local officials working at the registration center Human Rights Watch spoke by phone with two other Mariupol residents who had managed to escape the city   “The last two weeks were pure horror,” a school principal from Mariupol told Human Rights Watch “We left because our city is no more.” A 32-year-old woman who fled to Zaporizhzhia with her three children said that their house in Mariupol was so damaged that it looked like a strainer covered with holes caused by the persistent attacks A 64-year-old woman said: “I think those who are left will get killed or starve to death Mariupol is a coastal city between two regions currently under the effective control of Russian forces. Since around March 2, Russian forces have completely surrounded the city and blocked the port. Reports of fighting within the city center have emerged in recent days and many of the residents who fled said they saw Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and military equipment in their neighborhoods Andryushchenko told Human Rights Watch that at least 200,000 of the city’s pre-war population of over 400,000 remain in the city and countless homes had been damaged or destroyed by shelling Many said that their family members or neighbors had suffered serious and fatal injuries from metal fragments of explosives and that they saw dead bodies strewn on the roads when they ventured out to look for food or water or to find a signal for their mobile phones The inability to communicate with relatives, friends, and the outside world was a particular challenge for people in Mariupol. Almost all cell phone towers had stopped delivering a signal by March 2 with only faint signals in specific locations after that A graphic designer said that every day she would walk two and a half kilometers each way to a Kyivstar cellphone tower to try to get reception ducking down to the ground every time a plane flew overhead Everyone interviewed noted that the lack of information caused by ruptures in telecommunication and electricity made it very difficult to figure out how to evacuate the city safely Those interviewed described staying in basements for days in crowded and unsanitary conditions unable to shower and with little to eat or drink One woman said she stayed for two weeks in a basement with at least 80 people that was about 300 square meters; a man stayed with 50 people in a basement that was 50 square meters; and another man said he stayed with 18 people in a basement that was 10 square meters Older people and people with disabilities described the additional challenges they faced: unable to move to their basements for shelter they sat in their apartments with blown out windows An 82-year-old man who stayed in his sixth-floor apartment since the attacks began said he distracted himself by cleaning up the glass shards that littered the floors: “I was shaking as the bombs were dropping and I was afraid the building would collapse But I spent my days trying to clean the glass shards alleging that Ukrainian forces had been occupying it and that they had warned civilians inside to leave Human Rights Watch was unable to verify these claims According to Kirill Timoshenko, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, at least 9,000 Mariupol residents had been able to flee to Zaporizhzhia using an agreed-upon humanitarian corridor over the previous few days said that agreement only covered a corridor between the Russian-controlled city of Berdyansk He said that the route traveling out of Mariupol to Berdyansk is still subject to ongoing heavy fighting and that civilians have not been offered any specific guarantees with respect to a humanitarian corridor or safe passage for this stretch.  Local authorities in Mariupol also reported on March 19 that Russian forces had taken “between 4,000 and 4,500 Mariupol residents forcibly across the border” into southwestern Russia The Russian ministry of defense announced on March 20 that nearly 60,000 Mariupol residents were “evacuated to Russia” over the past three days and that Mariupol residents have a “voluntary choice” regarding which corridor to take or whether to stay in the city Human Rights Watch has not been able to verify these accounts If Mariupol residents have been forcibly transferred to Russia A transfer can be forcible when a person volunteers because they fear consequences such as violence and the occupying power is taking advantage of a coercive environment to conduct the transfer Both Russia and Ukraine have obligations to ensure access for humanitarian assistance to civilians and to take all feasible steps to allow the civilian population to evacuate safely whether or not an agreement to establish humanitarian corridors is put into effect Russia is prohibited from forcibly requiring civilians to evacuate to places in Russia or other countries such as Belarus.  The use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas heightens concerns of unlawful These weapons have a large destructive radius or deliver multiple munitions at the same time This includes the use of unguided and unobserved large-caliber projectiles and aviation bombs The use of these weapons should be avoided in populated areas with a view to prosecuting those most responsible “For those who were able to escape Mariupol the news of recent evacuations has given them a bit of hope that those they love may make it out of the city alive,” Wille said “Russian and Ukrainian forces should urgently do what it takes to protect civilians remaining in Mariupol and to allow those who want to leave the besieged city to do so in safety.” Those interviewed are either not identified by name or identified by their first names only for their protection All 32 Mariupol residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch described periods of sustained and often intensifying attacks with explosive weapons from the beginning of fighting on February 24 to the moment they fled the city Witnesses described attacks that killed and injured their neighbors as they took shelter in their homes throwing them from buildings and piercing them with fragments The attacks also destroyed and damaged homes collapsing and burning buildings in numerous parts of the city The descriptions of the attacks and their effects are consistent with the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects said he was on the balcony of his father’s apartment catapulting a man out of the window of the building next door and to the ground outside The same attack started a fire in one of the stairwells of his father’s building “We don’t know if there were casualties because that part of the building collapsed and no one could search for people in the rubble because of the constant shelling,” he said he said: “I was just coming out of the building carrying some water and I saw [a neighbor’s] body … His dead body was just lying there Several residents described attacks that killed or injured people as they were on their way to get what little food was available or to collect water from nearby rivers or springs One man said that three women were on their way to buy bread when an attack took place He said he started to take one woman who had a serious stomach wound to the hospital until he came across Ukrainian soldiers who said they would take her to get treatment A 37-year-old man described how his neighbor was killed an attack hit while a young man from our building was outside trying to start a fire to cook,” he explained his family has not been able to bury him yet A doctor from Mariupol said that the hospital where she worked was damaged in an attack on March 10 The hospital had been closed since February 24 A school principal said that two munitions exploded in the yard of his school on March 15 adding that dozens of other schools in the city were also damaged Everyone interviewed said that running water had stopped in the city on or around March 2 and that they had not been able to shower since To try to get potable and non-potable water they waited in line for up to six hours at fresh springs and at water trucks in the city or flushed out their buildings’ heating systems the men sheltering in his basement collected as much snow as possible to melt and boil over a fire so that the women and children could wash themselves Some people said they had to defecate in buckets One woman said the 30 people sheltering in her basement had only one bucket Those interviewed said they survived on food that they had at home before the fighting started and shared their dwindling stocks with those sheltering with them many of those interviewed owned personal vehicles and had considerable stockpiles of foodstuffs so their experience was not necessarily representative of the experience of other civilians remaining in the city said that her family and her neighbor’s family eventually only had expired cans of paté left to eat with the adults eating only one meal a day Several families said they ran out of baby formula early on Everyone said they cooked their food on open fires in the yards outside their buildings or in kitchens that were near their basements Several people interviewed who had been sheltering in larger basements with more people said that volunteers and the police sometimes came to their basements to deliver some food None of those interviewed said they saw Russian forces distributing aid at any point. According to Ukrainian authorities, a convoy of humanitarian vehicles trying to bring aid into Mariupol was stuck in the Russian-controlled city of Berdyansk The convoy had reportedly turned back by March 20 without reaching Mariupol or delivering the aid Everyone interviewed said they lost electricity on around March 2 but it was destroyed in an attack on March 10 families eventually ran out of fuel for them to run Human Rights Watch recognizes that the internationally protected right to an adequate standard of living includes everyone’s right Access to electricity is critical to ensuring other basic rights including but not limited to the rights to health Steps should be taken to restore reliable electricity access for civilians to safeguard their other basic rights people in the city lost access to phone lines and most local radio stations (with the exception of some medium wave stations that were faint) They had no ability to access information about what was happening inside or outside the city Everyone interviewed said that this lack of information was one of the things that made it the most difficult for them to figure out how to leave the city safely Valery said he lived in a building next to a mobile phone tower But after several attacks next to the tower including the one that destroyed his building’s generator In an example of how residents struggled to reach their loved ones showed researchers a picture she had taken of a piece of paper that a mother had stuck to a water cistern in the city where many people were going to fetch water now in Kirovskii [neighborhood] at Natasha's,” the note said and his wife were waiting at the reception center in Zaporizhzhia for their daughter They said they had not heard from them for eight days and only found out they were alive the night before when their children called them from a city between Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia “You see how grey my hair is?” Serhii said Russian forces took over local radio broadcasts just after they encircled the city and they sent text messages to those inside the city which came through when residents happened to pick up a signal One man said that he heard Russian forces announcing on the radio: “Give up soldiers leaning it onto your left shoulder and approach us and we guarantee food and will let you join your family after the fighting stops.” Two people said that at one point when their phones were on they received text messages that they assumed had been sent by the Russian forces said she received a message from the number 777 that read: “Ukrainian army surrender.” Those interviewed said they did not receive any messages directed at civilians warning them to take precautions prior to attacks or about access to humanitarian assistance or routes for safe passage Some people interviewed said they did not know whether any hospitals in the city were functioning while others said that they had heard of one or two civilian and military hospitals that were still open Human Rights Watch spoke to the daughter of a man who lost his eye after an explosion on March 6 she said there was no running water and limited electricity from their generators that they were using only to perform life-saving operations said his home was about 200 meters from the main hospital in Mariupol that was treating Covid-19 patients staff at the hospital told him that they had run out of oxygen days earlier and as a result people with serious respiratory symptoms were dying One man working as a volunteer delivering aid to shelters said that several people had come into the basement where he was sheltering with wounds from metal fragments caused by explosions “Sometimes the ambulance started driving toward us but then had to turn back because of the shelling and come back later,” he said a wheelchair user who cannot walk since an accident 17 years ago has been on daily medication to treat thyroid cancer for the past six years She said she ran out of her medicine soon after the fighting started when the pharmacies had already been looted and emptied out She went to the hospital near her home that was open but doctors there said they had run out of the medication she was on and gave her a substitute She has no idea what the impact of being off her required medication for so long will mean for her future said that even though his school had sheltered up to 200 people they only had basic medicine there and the teachers “We gave medical assistance as we could with the means that we had,” he said for each car in Mariupol that still functioned he had seen at least 50 other cars destroyed during the bombardment seriously limiting the ability of many Mariupol residents to escape Residents described passing through between 15 and 20 Russian military checkpoints between Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia They all said that Russian soldiers either asked for the documents of the driver or for everyone’s documents Serhii said the soldiers were paying particular attention to the registered address that is written in Ukrainian passports to see if people were from Mariupol or elsewhere if they came across a man not from Mariupol they would assume he was a soldier,” he said The Russian forces also made Serhii expose his shoulders apparently to look for signs of bruising which might indicate that a person had used a firearm Another resident said that they inspected the hands of the adult men for signs that they had been fighting or using a weapon Four people interviewed said that soldiers inspected their phones at the checkpoints something that they had heard might happen so they had deleted any photos of the damage from Russian forces’ bombardment in Mariupol before leaving the city a Russian soldier asked Olexsandr if he had any “forbidden” photos on his phone “I asked him what was considered forbidden and the soldier told me any photos of any Russian military vehicles,” Olexsandr said He had wiped his phone before passing through the checkpoints None of the Mariupol residents described serious mistreatment by soldiers at the checkpoints One of them said that the Russian soldiers treated everyone in his car correctly but several people were detained from the vehicle that was two cars ahead of them at the checkpoint the soldiers fired their weapons in the air after what seemed to be a verbal altercation One soldier then dragged a man out of the car The witness did not know what had led to the detentions or what happened to those who were detained Another person said his car was fired upon he presumed by Russian forces because he was driving through an area fully under Russian control Later he examined the car and said the side had been pierced by a metal fragment said that between Mariupol and exiting the area under Russian control he saw at least 10 burned cars on the sides of the road or in fields he saw a dead body lying next to a burned-out car several thousand residents – a small fraction of the residents still trapped in Mariupol by the intense fighting – were able to flee Everyone interviewed said that they had only been able to leave because they had their own car or were able to find a ride with someone who did and that many people with whom they had sheltered in basements and those with limited mobility had stayed behind Because electricity and telecommunications are not functioning those who were able to leave had no information about those who are still in the city One woman who was able to find a ride said she was forced to leave her mother who could not make it down the stairs to the shelter in her wheelchair Ina said that she left with about 16 other people and about 65 others remained in the basement where they were sheltering we noticed there was only about two-days’ worth of food stocks left for everyone so I don’t know what will happen to them,” she said he said at least 50 people remained in the school with no means of transport out Several residents cited locations housing hundreds of people at the time they left the city and they were worried that these areas might come under attack Legal Obligations and Relevant International Humanitarian Law and for the purpose of capturing an enemy-controlled area Siege tactics cannot include starving a civilian population or attacking or rendering useless objects indispensable to the civilian population’s survival Deliberate employment of such tactics is a war crime Tactics that arbitrarily deny civilians access to items essential for their well-being such as water and all parties should protect objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population including those necessary for water distribution and sanitation The laws of war prohibit deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects and attacks that cause anticipated harm to civilians disproportionate to the expected military benefit Unlawful and wanton excessive destruction of property to take necessary precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations Evacuations of civilians in and around Mariupol who want to leave When an agreement to establish humanitarian corridors is put into effect parties should not breach that agreement in any way that places civilians at risk All parties must abide by their obligations not to carry out attacks that would target or cause harm to civilians who are on the move including along railway and road routes being used to leave Parties should allow access for neutral and independent humanitarian actors to support civilians at particular risk who may need assistance to leave and people with chronic or severe medical conditions Parties to the conflict are prohibited from deporting or forcibly transferring the civilian population of an occupied territory unless it is demanded by civilian security or imperative military reasons The fourth Geneva Convention prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers of civilians from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying power or any other country If for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement but those evacuated must be transferred back to their homes as soon as the specific hostilities in the area in question have ceased Violation of this prohibition is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and prosecutable as a war crime which has opened an investigation into potential war crimes in Ukraine can prosecute the war crime of “the deportation or transfer [by the Occupying Power] of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory.” and Russia in the areas that it currently controls access to or occupies should ensure that there is adequate supply of food and that services vital for the civilian population continue Both parties should abide by obligations to allow and facilitate the rapid passage of humanitarian aid for all civilians in need and not deny access or arbitrarily interfere with distribution Starving civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime Explosive Weapons’ Effects in Armed Conflict and Measures to Strengthen Protection Get updates on human rights issues from around the globe Associated Press video journalist Mstyslav Chernov — writer and director of FRONTLINE and AP's documentary "20 Days in Mariupol" — pictured on on Feb a strategic port city in southeastern Ukraine was under siege for the first harrowing months of Russia’s full-scale invasion For almost three months before the city fell to Russian forces last May Mariupol became a battleground with Ukrainian civilians caught in the crossfire Ukrainian filmmaker and conflict journalist Mstyslav Chernov who previously covered conflicts in Syria and Iraq traveled to Mariupol with AP colleagues hours before the war began photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko continued to document the atrocities as the siege continued until they were the last international journalists remaining in the city as Russian forces closed in They captured what would become some of the most defining images of the war Chernov spoke with FRONTLINE about how the city of Mariupol has changed since the Russian takeover updates on some of the people who appeared in the documentary and what happened to Mariupol’s civilians and children after the siege This interview has been edited for length and clarity Reports have said that 90% of Mariupol’s residential buildings were either damaged or destroyed by Russian shelling during the siege Can you describe what the destruction looked like when you left the city I have to say that it is not something new when Russian bombs are destroying a city Russian companies are getting contracts to reconstruct some of these buildings You see the bitter irony in this when Russian bombs are destroying the city and then Russian companies are profiting out of that destruction was thriving as a city — culturally and industrially — and it was just beautiful Thousands and thousands of people have lost their homes and just have no way of coming back Russia added several newly constructed buildings but they were obviously not enough to fulfill the needs of those people who lost their houses and are mostly given to Russian citizens or people who collaborate with Russia A big part of the city is still destroyed and many people will not be able to come back Speaking about people who lost their homes what have you heard from your sources about how the city has changed since the Russian takeover How has the city changed from their point of view most of the people who you see in the film have been able to leave Mariupol And all the people who for various reasons remained in Mariupol and openly support Ukraine They are constantly being questioned and detained I was contacted by one of the Mariupol residents we frequently spoke with before and he told me that those people who have Ukrainian passports who refused to give [up] their identity and change it for a Russian passport So those people who have Ukrainian passports have lost their rights Listen: Documenting the Siege of Mariupol You mentioned you were able to keep in touch with the people you met during the siege Do you know where these people are and what they’re doing now The policeman who risked his family to save us from the siege, Officer Vladimir was recently injured by a double-tap of a Russian rocket in the city of Pokrovsk And he’s now going through a recovery process because he had multiple shrapnel injuries The team of special forces that extracted us from a surrounding hospital and then held as prisoners of war in Russia they were exchanged and they’re back [on] the front lines there They are dreaming [of liberating] Mariupol Read more: War Crimes Watch: Russia’s Onslaught on Ukrainian Hospitals families who lost their loved ones are scattered all across the world And I’m happy to know that some of them were found by people who watched the film [who] were able to find these families and support them That’s such a great testament to the power of 20 Days in Mariupol to actually have an impact on other people’s lives It has a very strong impact on the Mariupol community who are now in exile because as tragic as it is they still carry their city in their heart cities that are not very far from Mariupol We had several screenings of the film there and they were exclusively for Mariupol residents They came and they shared their stories — stories which were very tragic and which were never recorded because we left after 20 days Most of the destruction happened after we left so when we showed this film to Mariupol residents in exile they saw that at least some of the tragedy was recorded but some of it was recorded and they knew it’s not going to be forgotten now The fact that hundreds of thousands of people will see the film when it’s broadcasted and published will ensure that people will remember this tragedy a huge psychological help to families that lost everything You mentioned a lot of the people who fled the city are scattered around the world. There have been reports that some Ukrainian civilians who fled the fight in Mariupol were sent to Russia it was immensely difficult to cross the active front line That is what we had to do and that’s what thousands of people did through the green (humanitarian) corridor a lot of thousands of people were taken away Maybe some of them who have relatives there or decided to stay there are okay but a lot of people struggled because they couldn’t leave Russia after that It’s very hard for them to make their way back to Ukraine or to Europe because they don’t have enough money They don’t have documents to cross the border What do you hope American viewers take away from watching your documentary I think the most surprising thing they could take away from the film is a feeling of sadness and anger and just a will to act somehow on what you just saw when you see people suffering and losing their loved ones And I think this is an amazing lesson for all humans to see this resilience to see how it could be when people unite in the face of danger and destruction It just shows how Ukrainian society was able to actually resist and to be so resilient in the face of the enemy I think the hope is what I want the audience to walk out with when they watch this film In your interview with FRONTLINE Dispatch you shared the sentiment that even if Mariupol is a new city in 100 years we will always have this film as a reminder of what happened during the Russian invasion You’ve also mentioned all the changes that Mariupol has undergone in just a year and a half What aspect of the city do you hope people will remember I see in every Mariupol citizen who lost the city: They want to come back It’s the city that people carried away with them It’s the city that people will bring back and will rebuild This tragedy has united people from Mariupol this is an extraordinary achievement of a very sad event I briefly went to Italy for a media conference and it was the first time I left Ukraine after the Mariupol siege We already started editing 20 Days in Mariupol so I constantly saw these images of destruction and suffering on my laptop I was driving with my friend through Rome and it was beautiful and colorful There were so many tourists and there were so many beautiful buildings and I kept looking at them from the window of a car I feel very bad because I look at this beauty and I keep thinking about Mariupol which was destroyed completely.” And he said You know how many times Rome was occupied and burned down to the ground And look at it now.” So Mariupol will also be revived and will be thriving again Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L highly relevant issue briefs and reports that break new ground with a focus on advancing debates by integrating foundational research and analysis with concrete policy solutions the Atlantic Council’s experts have you covered—delivering their sharpest rapid insight and forward-looking analysis direct to your inbox New Atlanticist is where top experts and policymakers at the Atlantic Council and beyond offer exclusive insight on the most pressing global challenges—and the United States’ role in addressing them alongside its allies and partners A weekly column by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe Inflection Points focuses on the global challenges facing the United States and how to best address them UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics UkraineAlert sources analysis and commentary from a wide-array of thought-leaders and activists from Ukraine and the global community MENASource offers the latest news from across the Middle East and independent analysis from fellows and staff Econographics provides an in-depth look at trends in the global economy utilizing state-of-the-art data visualization tools The Battle of Mariupol is over and Russia is busy proclaiming the liberation of the city This formerly bustling metropolis of almost half a million people now lies on the brink of extinction pummeled into submission by a vicious campaign of Russian annihilation The estimated 100,000 remaining residents of Mariupol find themselves reduced to living among the rubble without medicines Global audiences have grown used to the apocalyptic scenes in Mariupol and are no longer shocked by the destruction of an entire city In order to grasp the full extent of Putin’s crime it is vital to remember Mariupol as it was before the outbreak of war.  Mariupol was always a special city with a diverse population included a large ethnic Greek community Located on the Azov Sea in southern Ukraine it was warm and sunny for most of the year Though the air was thick from the heavy industry located in the heart of Mariupol local residents tended to be proud of their city and fiercely loyal War first came to Mariupol in spring 2014 when Moscow attempted to seize control of the surrounding Donbas region during the initial stages of the ongoing eight-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine The city was taken over by Russian forces but this occupation proved mercifully brief Mariupol gained in significance as the largest city in the Donbas still under Ukrainian control Located just a few kilometers from the front lines of the simmering conflict with Russia it became an administrative and economic focus as well as a showcase for the higher living standards and greater personal freedoms offered by Ukraine While regions of eastern Ukraine under Russian occupation withered and stagnated This city was a mirror providing a stark contrast to the atrophy of the Russian-controlled parts of the Donbas Mariupol welcomed a shiny new office of government interaction where people could go to marry and register births without the suffocating and corrupt old-style bureaucracy that Ukraine used to be famed for Hipster cafes and bars popped up across town along with sleek co-working spaces and IT hubs A new highway linked the city to neighboring regions in southern Ukraine Mariupol was also a beneficiary of Ukraine’s successful decentralization reforms The move towards giving local communities more say over how they live their lives and spend their budgets created genuine political competition between people who wanted to serve their communities and not just plunder them This was strikingly different to the authoritarian model of paternalism promoted in Russia and Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine Though almost every single building in Mariupol has now been razed to the ground The personal stories of Mariupol residents deserve to be heard I recently met some refugees who had made it out of the city we helped a family of three during the very last stage of their 1200km journey to temporary shelter in western Ukraine The mother explained how she had escaped Mariupol with her 12-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son They had made their way across Ukraine together carrying their few most precious possessions with them including religious icons and a favorite teddy bear These survivors used the single word “hell” when attempting to describe what they had lived through in Mariupol Once they had arrived at their accommodation and completed the check-in process the mother came to the realization that she had finally brought her children to safety she let a few tears go before composing herself again Similar scenes have been repeated countless times over the past few months Those who made it out of Mariupol safely have wept tears of relief for their survival and tears of grief for those they left behind They are also mourning the death of their hometown The Mariupol you now see on your TV screens is a crime scene where tens of thousands of civilian lives have been extinguished This is not the Mariupol that survivors remember Their memories are of a beautiful and vibrant place with a strong sense of community where families worked hard to build their dreams As the location of one of the largest steelworks in Europe the city was home to some very hard people who routinely did dangerous work and deserved to be respected This traditional toughness was one of the reasons why Mariupol was defended so valiantly despite the Russian terror unleashed upon it The Kremlin propaganda machine is now attempting to portray the destruction of Mariupol as a Russian victory the long defense of Mariupol against overwhelming odds should be remembered as a powerful example of the Ukrainian heroism that has captured the world’s imagination The Ukrainian troops who held the vast Azovstal industrial complex for months did so knowing that they faced almost certain death or captivity safe in the knowledge that their stand was pinning down whole units of the Russian army which would otherwise be unleashed elsewhere in Ukraine Mariupol must also be remembered as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the twenty-first century The atrocities committed by Russian troops throughout Ukraine have horrified global audiences and have sparked an international war crimes investigation along with accusations of genocide Putin ordered the destruction of the city despite knowing hundreds of thousands of civilians were unable to flee Mariupol was destroyed in order to send a chilling message to all Ukrainians of the fate awaiting anyone who refuses Putin’s invitation to join the so-called “Russian World.” The fact that Mariupol was an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking city that had traditionally backed pro-Kremlin political forces only appears to have hardened Putin’s resolve to punish the city for its defiance there can be no more illusions regarding the possibility of a compromise peace with Putin A city that was once marked by the smells of heavy industry and seaside breezes is now enveloped in the stench of decomposing bodies trapped beneath the rubble more towns and cities across Ukraine will suffer the same fate The next city in line for such devastation is Severodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast no European leader can claim they were not forewarned Paul Niland is the Founder of Lifeline Ukraine Centuries of traumatic experience with the horrors of Russian imperialism have shaped today’s Ukraine in ways that may actually contribute to Putin’s defeat and help Ukrainians to build a better future for their country Vladimir Putin has sought to justify his invasion of Ukraine by claiming the country has no right to exist but in reality modern Ukraine enjoys a level of democratic legitimacy that far exceeds his own authoritarian regime Vladimir Putin expected a quick victory in Ukraine but now finds himself facing a catastrophic defeat that will shatter Russia’s pretensions to military superpower status while threatening Putin’s own authoritarian regime The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus Image: People stand amid newly-made graves at a cemetery in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the settlement of Staryi Krym outside Mariupol Sign up to receive expert analysis from our community on the most important global issues © 2025 Atlantic CouncilAll rights reserved If refreshing the page doesn't resolve the issue you could try clearing the sites browser cache FILE - A Russian soldier guards the site of a new apartment building which is is being built with the support of the Russian Defense Ministry in territory under control of the government of the Donetsk People’s Republic This photo was taken during a trip organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense FILE - A woman walks past a burning apartment building after shelling in Mariupol FILE - An explosion erupts from an apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St. after a Russian army tank fired on it in Mariupol 2022 image from video shows the makeshift graves of two women who were killed at 110 Mytropolytska St in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol when a Russian tank opened fire on their building on March 11 Residents say the city was full of makeshift graves such as these with thousands killed during the Russian siege 2022 image from video shows fencing surrounding the Drama Theater in Mariupol Months after hundreds died in Russian airstrikes on the theater the fencing is etched with Russian and Ukrainian literary figures as well as an outline of the theater’s previous life FILE - Local actors rehearse Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s Vaudeville play on the stage of the Philharmonic in Mariupol 2022 image from video shows some of the new graves which have been dug since the Russian siege began at the Staryi Krym cemetery on the outskirts of the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol The Associated Press estimated at least 10,300 new graves in and around Mariupol — 8,500 in this cemetery — by analyzing satellite imagery from early March through December noting sections where the earth had been disturbed FILE - This combination of satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies shows the Staryi Krym cemetery in Mariupol FILE - A Russian soldier inspects a corridor in the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol The remains of a statue and other rubble lie in front of the Azovstal steel mill which was the last place in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol to fall to Russian forces in late May 2022 A Russian master plan for the city envisions restoring the destroyed factory as an industrial park FILE - Workers build an apartment building for residents of Mariupol affected by hostilities FILE - Foreign journalists look inside a new unit in a new apartment block that is being built with the support of the Russia Defense Ministry in Mariupol FILE - A bus stops in front of an apartment building damaged during a heavy fighting in Mariupol FILE - A construction worker works on the site of the new municipal medical center in Mariupol with an Orthodox church in the background FILE - This combination of satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies shows damaged residential apartment buildings in the Livoberezhnyi district of Mariupol This photo provided by the family shows the coffins of two young cousins Their parents fled Mariupol soon after but returned to the occupied city in July to rebury the children now the site of thousands of new graves since the Russian invasion began Feb This pre-war photo provided by the family shows 5-year-old Artem Erashov were killed during Russian shelling on March 9 The families of the young cousins returned to occupied Mariupol to rebury their children in the Staryi Krym cemetery This photo provided by the family shows the graves of two young cousins This 2022 photo shows one of the at least 14 apartment buildings Russians have constructed in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol Residents say there’s a waitlist of more than 11,000 people for a new apartment Most of the city’s housing stock was hit by munitions during the siege of the city earlier in the year This photo provided by the family shows Ivan and Iryna Kalinin before the Feb Iryna and their unborn child were killed in a Russian airstrike on Mariupol’s maternity hospital Ivan returned to the occupied city to rebury his wife and baby Iryna Kalinin stands in front of a Christmas tree during her pregnancy She and her unborn first child were killed after a Russian airstrike hit a Mariupol maternity hospital while she was in labor on March 9 returned to the city to rebury his wife and their baby speaks about Mariupol’s transformation under Russian occupation He and many others from the occupied city have settled here has been transformed into a center for refugees from Mariupol A child from Mariupol plays at the library in Dnipro The library has been transformed into a center for refugees from Mariupol since the city’s capture by Russian forces in the spring Inna Nepomnyshaya looks at a photo of her apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St as it was struck by Russian tank fire in March 11 where she has settled after fleeing her home The shell shattered the walls of Nepomnyshaya’s apartment and obliterated those of the neighbors above FILE - This combination of satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies shows a site before the construction of new Russian military facility in Mariupol FILE - This combination of satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies shows the destroyed Mariupol FILE - Damaged and burned buildings are seen from an open window of a new apartment block that is being built with support of the Russia Defense Ministry in Mariupol this pre-war photo provided by the family shows 5-year-old Artem Erashov Right: photo provided by the family shows the coffins of two young cousins Russian workers are tearing down bombed-out buildings at a rate of at least one a day hauling away shattered bodies with the debris Many of the city’s Ukrainian street names are reverting to Soviet ones with the Avenue of Peace that cuts through Mariupol to be labeled Lenin Avenue Even the large sign that announces the name of the city at its entrance has been Russified white and blue of the Russian flag and the Russian spelling But the AP investigation into life in occupied Mariupol also underlines what its residents already know all too well: No matter what the Russians do More than 10,000 new graves now scar Mariupol and the death toll might run three times higher than an early estimate of at least 25,000 The former Ukrainian city has also hollowed out with Russian plans to demolish well over 50,000 homes Associated Press journalists were the last international media in Mariupol to escape heavy shelling in March This is the story of what has happened since AP reconnected with many people whose tragedies were captured in photos and video during the deadliest days of the Russian siege Death surrounds Mariupol in the rapidly growing cemeteries on its outskirts and its stench lingered over the city into the autumn Lydya Erashova watched her 5-year-old son Artem and her 7-year-old niece Angelina die after a Russian shelling in March The family hastily buried the young cousins in a makeshift grave in a yard and fled Mariupol They returned in July to rebury the children only to learn while on the road that the bodies had already been dug up and taken to a warehouse Neither she nor her sister-in-law could bear to go inside the warehouse to identify the bodies of their children chose the tiny coffins – one pink and one blue – to be placed together in a single grave The AP investigation drew on interviews with 30 residents from Mariupol including 13 living under Russian occupation; satellite imagery; hundreds of videos gathered from inside the city and Russian documents showing a master plan they chronicle a comprehensive effort to suppress Mariupol’s collective history and memory as a Ukrainian city Mariupol was in the crosshairs of the Kremlin from the first day of the invasion Just 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border the city is a port on the Sea of Azov and crucial for Russian supply lines The thoroughness of Russia’s destruction of Mariupol can still be seen today Videos taken across the city and satellite images show that munitions have left their mark on nearly every building across its 166 square kilometers (64 square miles) Large swaths of the city are devoid of color and life grey demolition dust and dead trees with shredded foliage But the worst destruction Mariupol suffered may be measured in its death toll a total at least 10,300 new graves are scattered around Mariupol confirmed by three forensic pathologists with expertise in mass graves Thousands more bodies likely never even made it to the graveyard the municipal government in exile estimated 25,000 people at a minimum had died But at least three people in the city since June say the number killed is triple that or more based on conversations with workers documenting body collection from the streets for the Russian occupation authorities Chebotareva returned home this autumn for just long enough to retrieve her belongings since residents are free to come and go so long as they pass checkpoints She said the Russians expect gratitude with their offer of a few new apartments “I don’t know how it’s possible now to give us ‘candies’ in exchange for destroyed homes and killed people,” she said in Kyiv This is how those who remained in Mariupol learn their buildings are scheduled for imminent demolition they are still living inside because they have nowhere else to go In a review of hundreds of photos and video clips along with documents from occupation authorities the AP found that more than 300 buildings in Mariupol have been or are about to be demolished but most are multistory apartment blocks in the khrushchyovka style launched by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in a housing crisis in the 1960s each building was designed to house as many families as possible the demolitions will remove well over 50,000 homes people aren’t prepared,” said an activist in Mariupol who like all inside Mariupol requested anonymity for fear of retribution according to another resident still in the city who works on the sites 110 Mytropolytska is one of the buildings on Russia’s demolition list The smell of fresh-baked bread still brings Inna Nepomnyshaya back to her last night in March in her sixth-floor apartment there When she saw the street price of bread in her besieged city The smell warmed the air the next morning when her son-in-law arrived Most of the neighbors were huddled in the basement couldn’t make the trip up and down the stairs Their bodies would be buried in the courtyard soon after AP video showed the rough graves still there Nepomnyshaya did not learn of the fate of her apartment until her family had escaped to Ukrainian-held territory she still speaks of the city in the present tense speaking by candlelight in a café in Dnipro Also on the demolition list are the buildings on either side One was hit by at least one airstrike on March 11; the walls of another are in ruins Russia is now moving into the historic city center Russian authorities in October dismantled Mariupol’s memorial to victims of the Holodomor the Soviet-engineered famine in the 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians according to video posted on Russian television They also painted over two murals commemorating victims of Russia’s 2014 attack on Ukraine “They spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on things like erasing demonstrations of Ukrainian identity and very little time tending to the needs of the Mariupol people,” said Michael Carpenter ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe “It’s really a very brutal inhuman colonial experiment unfolding before our eyes.” As it tries to raze the remains of Ukraine Russia has laid out a plan for a new city with a new population At its heart will lie the historic Mariupol theater according to the master plan first reported by the Russian site The Village in August and seen by The Associated Press the theater itself fell victim to the demolition campaign according to video from the city seen by The Associated Press Also in the Russian documents are plans to restore the ruins of the obliterated Azovstal steel mill The site is slated to be transformed into an industrial park by the end of next year though there are no signs that any work has begun Russia already has constructed at least 14 new apartment buildings — a small fraction of the number coming down — and is repairing at least two of the hospitals it damaged by shelling Video obtained by The Associated Press showed rows of pallets stacked with insulation from the Danish company Rockwool which maintains its division in Russia despite criticism Construction materials are not subject to sanctions Rockwool’s Vice President of Communications Michael Zarin said the insulation panels were distributed without the company’s “knowledge or consent,” and that he hopes its products help restore health care Videos show no furniture visible in the windows of the new apartments and few people on the sidewalks outside the disabled and those affiliated with the occupation seem to be getting them according to multiple people still in Mariupol One man applied to the list in September and found himself in 11,700th place He has friends in the 2,000 range who are still waiting whose number was in the 9,000s has already moved into one of the new buildings the man said he has no issue with the demolition of buildings that aren’t fit to live in He is cautiously relaunching his own company in the new city But the plans for a Russian Mariupol depend on a population that simply no longer exists Videos seen by the AP showed military convoys The activist the AP spoke with also confirmed an increase in the number of soldiers since Russian forces retreated from the Kharkiv and Kherson regions Construction workers from Russia show no signs of leaving and tents were visible outside the Port City mall until the winter Doctors and city administrators also have come in from Russia according to Russian government announcements and physicians who left the city after refusing to work for the occupation authorities “There is no more Russian city now than Mariupol,” Dmitry Sablin said in an interview with Russian media in June after visiting the city The Kremlin is moving as swiftly as it can to ensure that those Ukrainians who stay see their future as Russians This suits many of those who remained behind just fine Mariupol has always had some residents who considered themselves Russian Russia’s occupation of Mariupol has divided families and friends into two categories: Those who stayed and those who fled Both grapple with what Mariupol once was and will be He last saw his wife that morning when her labor began and she sent him to fetch clothes and diapers He learned about the airstrike at a military blockade on the way to the hospital He and his father found her body the next day at another hospital “I do not even know how I survived it,” he said quietly “I was drinking every day to fall asleep.” I might return at some point — it is my hometown “I fall asleep every day hoping this is a dream And I wake up with understanding that it is a reality.” Mariupol is now torn between Russia and Ukraine Some people who stayed are waiting for Russian citizenship just to get on with their lives is appearing as graffiti around the city — a small act of defiance in a place many described as full of fear whose apartment was struck by a Russian shell dreamed recently that she’d returned home and smelled bread But she is not sure if she ever can or will go back that it will be Ukraine after all,” she said “But I know that this smell is just a memory.” Hinnant and Stepanenko reported from Dnipro Evgeniy Maloletka and Inna Varenytsia in Kyiv An explosion erupts from an apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St. Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol A Russian attack has severely damaged a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol A man runs after recovering items from a burning shop following a Russian attack in Kharkiv FILE - Associated Press videographer Mstyslav Chernov reads news on his phone three days before the start of Russian invasion in Volnovakha Chernov headed to Mariupol with colleague Evgeniy Maloletka two Ukrainians who documented the horrors of the Russian invasion and siege of Mariupol for The Associated Press are being honored for their courage with Colby College’s Lovejoy Award FILE - Debris covers the inside of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre following a March 16 in an area now controlled by Russian forces The bombing of the theater that was used as a shelter stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date in the war People from Mariupol and eastern Ukraine disembark from a train at the railway station in Nizhny Novgorod to be taken to temporary residences in the region About 500 refugees from the Mariupol area arrived in Nizhny Novgorod on a special train organized by Russia from eastern Ukraine about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the border Vladislav Zahorodnii looks on during an interview with The Associated Press at a clinic in Kyiv Zahorodnii was evacuated from Azovstal by helicopter on March 31 It was Zagorodniy’s first helicopter flight The other one kept them airborne for the remainder of the 80-minute early morning dash to Dnipro city on the Dnieper River in central Ukraine Olga Lopatkina embraces her adopted children in a park in Loue After two months of negotiation and an initial objection from a senior Russian official DPR authorities finally agreed to allow a volunteer with power of attorney from Lopatkina to collect her children who were evacuated from Mariupol An Associated Press investigation has found that Russia’s strategy to take Ukrainian orphans and bring them up as Russian is well underway Ukrainian military doctors treat their injured comrade which was evacuated from the battlefield at the hospital in Donetsk region The city of Mariupol came under siege by Russian troops for almost three months in 2022 and turned into a symbol for Ukrainian resistance and now also for Russian occupation A team of three Associated Press reporters were the last international journalists to leave Mariupol after almost three weeks of intense shelling Amid all the horrors that have unfolded in the war on Ukraine the Russian airstrike on the theater being used as a bomb shelter in Mariupol on March 16 stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that the attack was far deadlier than estimated That’s almost double the current estimates The AP recreated what happened inside the theater on that day from the accounts of 23 survivors and people intimately familiar with the theater’s new life as a bomb shelter The AP also built a 3D model based on witness accounts Nearly 2 million Ukrainians refugees have been sent to Russia Their journey starts not with a gun to the head but with a poisoned choice: Die in Ukraine or live in Russia Those who choose to live in Russia are then taken through a series of what are known as filtration points where treatment ranges from interrogation and strip searches to being yanked aside and never seen again Ukraine portrays these journeys as forced transfers to enemy ground Russia calls them humanitarian evacuations An Associated Press investigation found that many refugees are indeed forced to embark on a surreal journey into Russia subjected along the way to human rights abuses It also found an underground network of Russians trying to help Ukrainians escape administrators and doctors are replacing the thousands of Ukrainians who have died or left Eight months after Mariupol fell into Russian hands Russia is eradicating all vestiges of Ukraine from it But it cannot hide the fact that it is building on death: The Associated Press found that more than 10,000 new graves already scar Mariupol An AP investigation into occupied Mariupol drew on interviews with 30 residents including 13 living under Russian occupation hundreds of videos gathered from inside the city Renovated buildings for propaganda materials in occupied Mariupol are cracking at the seams according to a post from the National Resistance Center (NRC) One such example is housing on Mezhova Street The building at this address has developed cracks in its load-bearing walls following the capital repair conducted by Russian contractors but the allocated funds for restoring the destroyed building have vanished," the report states local collaborators have devised an entire scheme to launder Kremlin funds for the reconstruction of Mariupol which has been bombarded by the Russian forces "They hire contractors through shell companies who create the appearance of work being done Propagandists loyal to Putin arrive to create beautiful videos about the wonderful life in a dying city people are once again left to face their problems and pain alone," the information resource added instead of providing housing to those who lost their homes due to Russian attacks Russian banks are profiting from the suffering of ordinary people Recently, the National Resistance Center reported that the invaders began constructing a large agricultural market in Mariupol. However, in reality, this will be a center for exporting stolen Ukrainian property.