An Urban Mausoleum

"It ]Mariupol] is horror. Wherever you look,whichever way you look. Everything is black, is destroyed."

"Our lives have been taken from us. Our child was taken from us."

"It's so ridiculous and stupid. How do you restore a dead city where people were killed at every turn?"

Lydya Erashova, Mariupol, Ukraine

"There is no discussion, people aren't prepared."

"People still live in the basements. Where they can go is unclear."

Mariupol activist

 

"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."

"It's really a very brutal, inhuman colonial experiment unfolding before our eyes."

Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

A man pulls a cart toward a destroyed suburb of Mariupol on October 29.

 

Back in November Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the heroism of those he spoke of as Mariupol's 'defenders' -- aka the Russian military that had laid siege to the city since February 24 -- as he awarded the ruined city the title of "City of Military Glory". The actual defenders of the Ukrainian city, now in Russian hands were needless to say, Ukrainians themselves determined not to allow Russia to take ownership of Mariupol.

But back in 2014 when Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia, he planned to advance to Donetsk's Mariupol on the Azov Sea as a land bridge between Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian military resisted Moscow's early siege of the city but months later the siege concluded with orders from Kyiv for the city defenders -- laid up, along with city dwellers at the Azovstal steel mill basement corridors -- to retreat and the ruined city fell to the invaders.

Moscow has ordered that Mariupol be scrubbed of all identification of its historic role as an industrial city of Ukraine's Donbas region. Plans for the destroyed iron works is to turn the site into an industrial park. The famed Mariupol theatre which had become the major bomb shelter of the city of close to a half-million residents which was destroyd when airstrikes hit it and hundreds died, is to be restored. OnlyRussian construction workers are permitted within its precincts.

 

Construction workers in a war-damaged apartment building.

 

According to Petro Andryushchenko, aide to Mariupole's exiled mayor, the reason that Ukrainian labour is excluded, not permitted the enter the ruins, is to ensure that only Russians are exposed to the sight of rotting corpses hauled away with the construction debris. For Moscow has undertaken a massive reconstruction of the city, to expunge its historic Ukrainian heritage status and completely Russify it.

 

Mariupol is now a garrison city with Russian soldiers, builders, administrators replacing the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who died there, or fled the Russian occupation. Ukrainian street names are converted to Soviet names. The Avenue of Peace to be renamed Lenin Avenue. The signage announcing the name of the city has been Russified, repainted with red, white and blue of the Russian flag. All vestiges of Ukrainian heritage obliterated.

 

The schools that remain open now teach a Russian curriculum, telephone and television networks are Russian, Ukrainian currency fading, and the city time zone now reflects Moscow's. Russia plans to demolish 50,000 homes in the city. The stench of death lingers over the city, fading out with winter's onset. One resident, Lydya Erashova saw her five-year-old son Artem and her seven-year-old niece Angelina die when a Russian shell hit their home.

 

A photo taken on October 19 shows Russian military trucks in front of a heavily damaged building in the center of Mariupol.

 

Her family buried the children in makeshift graves in a backyard and fled the city of death, returning in July to rebury the children. They discovered their bodies had been dug up and brought to a warehouse. Neither Lydya Erashova nor her sister-in-law were able to force themselves into the warehouse to retrieve the bodies of their children. The children's fathers chose tiny coffins to be placed side-by-side in a single grave.

 

During the months'-long siege the city was relentlessly targeted with airstrikes and artillery, food and water cut off along with communications. For 86 days of hardship and agony the city held itself together. In the eventual May surrender Mariupol made its way into history as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. Over 500 buildings have now been identified as awaiting demolition, each holding 180 apartments. In many of them corpses still decompose.

 

A child's playground in the courtyard of a ruined apartment block on October 29. Mariupol was once home to around 431,000 people. Less than a quarter of that number are estimated to remain in the city today

The fate of one of those ruined buildings took place in mid-March when Russian tanks rolled in. One tank raised its gun at a building on Mytropolytska Streeet and fired shattering walls and windows, obliterating apartments, and killing residents, though most by then were huddled in the building basement. Russian soldiers set to work dismantling Mariupol's memorial to the Holodomor, the Soviet famine that killed millions of Ukrainians.

 

Two murals commemorating victims of the 2014 attack on Ukraine were painted over. Russia has formulated a plan for a new, Russian city, with a new population. The Russian military forces will be replaced by Russian citizens. Ukrainians who are content to live under Russian rule will be permitted to live there as well. The thousands of Mariupol's residents who were were sent to Russia may return, while those who fled to other areas of Ukraine may not. 

The heavily damaged Azovstal steel mill photographed on October 29.
The historic Azovstal metalworks was the final holdout for members of Azov, a controversial Ukrainian regiment that previously used neo-Nazi imagery on its uniforms.

A Profile of Courage

"You [Associated Press journalists in Mariupol] got this flash drive out and I thank you. Because of you, I could leave this hell. Thanks to everyone involved in the exchange."

"They [the other captured/imprisoned Ukrainian female hostages] are all I think about. Every time I grab a cup of coffee or light a cigarette, my conscience pains me because they can't."

"My heart bleeds when I think about it [the siege of Mariupol], when I remember how the city died. It died like a person -- it was agonizing."

Yuliia Paievska (aka Taira) Ukrainian medic

Yuliia Paievska closing the eyes of a child who died on February 26, 2022 in Mariupol. She recorded her team's frantic efforts to bring wounded people back from the brink of life.

She is widely celebrated in Ukraine as a patriot, an athlete, a humanitarian. When she was captured by the Russian military and spirited away as a hostage, it was a devastating blow. Her work as a nurse was unparalleled and hugely valued. It was not known whether she might eventually emerge alive, or meet death at the hands of her captors. When the Russian invasion was in its infancy she had planned to drive 20 people hiding in the basement of the hospital she was serving in, to safety, away from Mariupol.

She was seen by the Russians. "They recognized me. They went away, made a call, came back. As far as I can tell, they already had a plan." Five days later she appeared on a Russian news broadcast that announced her capture. The video shows her looking groggy, face bruised and she reads a statement prepared for her as a voice-over speaks contemptuously of her as a Ukrainian Nazi. Her eyeglasses were taken from her, and never returned. She was placed in a cell with 21 other women prisoners.

The women were forced to sing the Russian national anthem daily. If the guards were in a bad mood, they were prodded to keep singing the anthem, up to 20 or 30 times. "I found it a plus [singing the hated anthem, she said puckishly]. I've always wanted to learn to sing -- then suddenly I had the time and a reason to practice. And it turns out that I can sing."

The 53-year-old is multi-gifted. Not only can she 'sing', she is also an athlete who can compete with the most physically-energetic active competitors. She is celebrated for her work in training field medics. She is a demobilized military medic, a member of Ukraine's Invictus Games team. She made use of a body camera filming the games for a Netflix documentary series. In Mariupol, she shot scenes of war. When she was taken captive by Russian troops she was one among well over multiple thousands of Ukrainian women taken hostage.

In Mariupol, filming the Russian assault against the city she shot over 256 gigabytes of bodycam footage of her medical team's struggle to save the wounded in the city. She managed to get the footage on a flash drive to Associated Press journalists who were the last international team who left Mariupol before it was taken by the Russian military. The journalists left on March 15 taking the tiny data card with them hidden within a tampon where it went through 15 Russian checkpoints. The following day Taira was taken prisoner.

She finally emerged on June 17, exchanged for a Russian man in a prisoner trade. Relieved to leave the three-by-six metre prison cell she shared with 21 women. On her release she looked different after the loss of 22 pounds, the result of poor nutrition and lack of activity. The AP report that circulated internationally indicated she had given nursing care to both wounded Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, along with the civilians of Mariupol. That single fact, nursing wounded Russians, led to her release.

In an interview following her release she was asked whether during the time of her imprisonment she had fears of her captivity ending in her death. This was a question, she responded, often asked of her by her jailers. She had responded: "I said no, because I'm right with God. But you are definitely going to hell".

Ukrainian medic Yuliia Paievska, forced into a three-by-six-metre cell with 21 other women. Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press

Russia's Hollow Victory

"The Russian army has started very intensive destruction of the town of Sievierodonetsk, the intensity of shelling doubled."

"They are shelling residential quarters, destroying house by house."

"We do not know how many people died, because it is simply impossible to go through and look at every apartment."

Serhiy Gaidai, Luhansk governor 

"This will be the critical next few weeks of the conflict."

"And it depends on how effective they are at conquering Sievierodonetsk and the lands across it."

Mathieu Boulegue, Chatham House think tank, London

Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting via teleconference on May 17    EPA

The riverside town of Sievierodonetsk is being bombarded by Russian troops in a major assault for the last Ukrainian-held territory in Luhansk where Moscow claims ethnic Russian separatists have moved the area solidly into Russian possession. A massive artillery bombardment as a last bastion in Luhansk is hammering Sievierodonetsk to solidify Russian possession of one of two northeastern provinces into Russian territory.

Both the city and its twin, Lyshchanak located on the Siverskiy Donets river's opposite bank represent a Ukrainian-held pocket in the east that Russia has focused on overrunning since mid-April, once its campaign to capture Kyiv had failed. According to Ukraine's general staff, in an offensive on Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine forces had pushed the offensive back along a stretch of the front line. 

Some military analysts view the advance of Russian forces on the Luhansk front as a major drive to achieve Russia's less ambitious war aims, to capture increased territory that pro-Russian rebels claim. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu claimed the "Liberation of the Luhansk People's Republic" would soon be completed.

The conditions in the Donbas, including Luhansk and its neighbour Donetsk province are "hell", according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the region has been completely destroyed: by Russian troops. Which speaks volumes about the Russian campaign, claiming Ukraine territory as its own by tradition and right of arms in a bid to force Ukraine to 'voluntarily' cede land to Russia. What Russia stands to gain if it manages to complete its takeover of the Donbas is a smoking, crushed ruin.

Moscow anticipates the face-saving issue of the capture of Luhansk and Donetsk, in finally being able to claim a 'victory' since it had announced this to be its objective. That goal came closer to reality when Ukraine ordered its garrison in the port city of Mariupol to stand down following a siege of close to three months. A situation that Russia celebrates as a 'surrender' and Ukraine defends as a 'withdrawal' for the purpose of preserving the lives of Ukrainian servicemen. 

More than 1,700 soldiers in the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, have surrendered since Monday, Russian authorities said. Here, Ukrainian servicemen sit in a bus after arriving under escort of the pro-Russian military in Olenivka in the Donetsk region on Friday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

 

Roughly two thousand Ukraine militia members have so far surrendered at the Azovstl metalworks. The question of how many Ukrainian fighters surrendered has not been confirmed by Kyiv, but Britain's estimate is that a large force had laid down arms, the estimate placed at around 1,700. An unknown number of fighters remained within the underground labyrinth of the steelworks, unprepared to surrender their defense of the ruined city. 

An unknown number of troops remain in the sprawling complex, seen here on Friday, which is the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic port city — a target from the start of the Russian invasion nearly three months ago. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Ukraine's military command had assured the city's defenders they could emerge and save their lives. The commander of the Azov Battalion, the unit that has defended the steelworks, confirmed the order to halt fighting was being carried out, stating that all civilians and wounded fighters were removed from the plant. "The situation is really hard and horrible and my husband is on the way from one hell to another hell, from Azovstal steel plant to a prison, to captivity", the wife of one soldier lamented.

The Red Cross undertook registration of hundreds of Ukrainians surrendering as prisoners of war. Moscow claims the prisoners will be given humane treatment under internationally-recognized war conventions. Russian politicians on the other hand, claim some of the Ukrainian soldiers must be tried for crimes, and even executed, presumably as neo-Nazi fascists, as Vladimir Putin has so often claimed them to be. 

A convoy of pro-Russian troops is seen before the evacuation of wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the besieged steel mill on Monday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Russia is desperate to emerge from this vicious fiasco it has created, with some semblance of pride in its enterprise. One that has crushed its reputation as thoroughly as the bombardment of Ukraine's towns, villages and cities have been crushed by Russia's war machines. The Kremlin's orders to its troops to succeed in its noble enterprise of striking civilian targets, killing civilians by the thousands, destroying their homes and creating millions of displaced and refugees have created a living hell for innocent people.

 Not so happily for Russia, military analysts maintain that Russia's resources to achieve its goal of capturing the entire Donbas may yet fail, owing to scarcity of resources. In hopes of bolstering its war effort, Moscow's parliament is considering a bill to invite Russians over age 40 and foreigners age 30 and over to join the military.

A Doomed Final Stand: Mariupol

The Telegraph

"When he proposed to me, I couldn't refuse We've been going out for three years, and I was hoping we'd get married anyway, but not for another year or two. The war, though, is speeding up our lives, and our time together now is shrinking."

"A female Azov fighter who was a trained lawyer acted as a witness."

"The day before, she had lost her own husband in the fighting, but she drew up the documents for our wedding anyway."

"We had no ceremony, no dresses or suits, and afterward the Russians attacked again. We had cluster bombs for our wedding instead of fireworks."

"He'd lost 20 kilos and looked gaunt, plus two of his comrades that I knew had died. At that point he began saying that he could die any day. He'd aged as well -- he looks 45 now, and inside he says he feels 100 years old."

"It is all very well for the UN to focus on civilians, but soldiers like my husband have risked their lives to defend Mariupol. They deserve some protection too."

Nataliia Zarytska, 36, Kyiv, Ukraine

The Telegraph "We got married while he was in the bunker"

 

Her husband is among the 2,000 fighters estimated to be left in Mariupol in the sprawling, now mostly destroyed steelworks factory's underground maze, holding out against the Russian troops ordered by Vladimir Putin to starve them out of the Azovstal plant. It was to be sealed so tightly that no one could enter or exit: "not a fly can get past". The tunnels have now been cleared of the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians who had taken shelter within from the non-stop Russian artillery and bombs.

A United Nations special mission had managed to evacuate all the remaining civilians, bringing them to safety. In the process, negotiating with the Russian military time and time again to respect the need to refrain from interfering with a humanitarian corridor to safety. Just as often as safe evacuation plans had buses, even taxis full of evacuees fleeing the conflict to safety, the Russian military managed to upend the plans by failing the agreement, forcing cancellations.

Now, at last, it is only the remaining fighters, most with the Azov Battalion, but others as well, left in the tunnels which Russian troops have now also entered, deploying for face-to-face combat. The Ukrainian militia fighters have had to cope with a scarcity of food, ammunition, water and medicine. Among their numbers are hundreds who are injured, whose untreated wounds are beginning to turn gangrenous and if they endure and somehow live, they will have to face amputation.

Among the fighters, one of the Azov Battalion members is a young man, Bogdan Semenets, who has been on the front lines of eastern Ukraine facing off against ethnic Russian Ukrainian separatists for the past five years. Within the Azovstal factory's subterranean depths a deadlined offer was twice posted and each time ignored, for the Ukrainian fighters to surrender, and they would have their lives spared. Semenets had few illusions; to trust the Kremlin's mercy was an exercise in futility. 

He was prepared to save a bullet for himself rather than surrender. "Better our commanders order us to kill ourselves than we give ourselves up", he wrote to Nataliia. Bogdan sent Nataliia a text asking would she marry him? "Yes", she responded. And so, on April 17 the two exchanged wedding vows online, the ceremony officiated by Bogdan's commanding officer who under military law could legally perform marriages.

Each sent the other signed wedding consent forms through the Telegram messaging channel. His was handwritten, bearing his commander's official stamp. They had originally met  through an introduction by a mutual friend. He was fighting at the time with Azov against the Russians in the Donbas region. They would manage to see one another whenever he was on leave. They shared a mutual interest in literature. The Russian-American author Ayn Rand one of their favourites, for her critiques of life under Soviet rule.

Nataliia hadn't heard from Bogdan through March into early April, after the war began on February 24. And then a flurry of communications caught up to her finally on April 9. And she was shocked to see how aged and thin he appeared. Last week, she among other wives of Azov fighters took part in a demonstration in Kyiv, where they pleaded for the Ukraine government and others to help save their husbands' lives.

They believed that if the international community would exert greater pressure on Russia, the Kremlin could be persuaded to permit safe passage for the fighters out of the Azovstal plant. Yesterday, a video conference surfaced from the factory where Azov commanders said they felt "abandoned" by NATO, from which they had been refused the supply of weapons. They said that 25,000 people had died in the fighting in Mariupol.

Finally, Bogdan's latest and perhaps last message to his wife was received this past weekend. Where he reminded Nataliia that this could be his final communication with her. "It can't go on like this much longer. We may not meet again. XXX", he wrote to his wife.

Nataliia Zarytska, with a photo of Bogdan Semenets, whom she had been dating for three years before she accepted his proposal   Credit: Heathcliff O’Malley for The Telegraph

"I think they [attacking Russian troops] are trying to catch some of us alive before May 9 [Russian Victory Day Parade, memorializing the WWII battle against Nazi Germany] and send us to the parade in cages."

"Forget about us, we won't get out of here."

Trapped Ukraine solider, in Azovstal plant, Mariupol

 

"The situation is extremely hard. However, we will continue carrying out the order to keep up our defences no matter what."

"I am proud of my soldiers who are making superhuman efforts to contain the pressure of the enemy."

Lt.Col. Denis Prokopenko

 

"There are local residents there, civilians -- hundreds of them there."

"There are children waiting for rescue.There are more than thirty kids."

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko

"It will take time simply to lift people out of these basements [in the vast maze of tunnels in the underground basements of the Azovstal metalworks plant]."

"In the present conditions, we cannot use heavy equipment to clear the rubble [caused by the non-stop bombing] away."

"It all has to be done by hand."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

A group of Mariupol evacuees head for Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Ukrinform/Rex/Shutterstock

Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine is not yet a war, but a 'special military operation'. Expected to take a week to mop up. The resistance of Ukraine and its military, led by the adamant courage of its president whose mettle is no longer in question as an actor-turned-president has taken Moscow by surprise and stalled the advance of the Russian military in its orders to 'liberate' Ukraine from its neo-Nazi government. 

 

When that assault, on the suburbs of Kyiv and associated later-discovered atrocities against civilians failed to materialize, the Russian battalions regrouped and dispatched themselves under orders to literally liberate Ukraine's eastern provinces from Ukrainian dominion, welcoming them as another Russian gift from a punished former satellite. The port city of Mariupol, critical to Vladimir Putin's plan to dominate the Black Sea, has been under direct fire from Russia since February 24. 

Under constant assault from an army with greater numbers of personnel than their own, with access to more materiel than Ukraine has at its disposal, the defenders of Mariupol have nonetheless, kept the invaders at bay. In this war of attrition, Russia has gradually assumed control of most of Mariupol, killing thousands of civilians in the process and utterly destroying the city, pounding it by bombs and artillery fire into rubble.

 

Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Ilya Semolienko: "My phone book is slowly turning into a collective obituary. Death is walking around everywhere. Does my life have value? No. The victory has value." He spoke from within the Mariupol Steel Plant. Photograph: USA Today

 

Yet the vast steelworks of the Azovstal plant's underground redoubts remain relatively intact underground, while the structure above lies in ruins. And in the sprawling underground network an estimated several hundred civilian residents of Mariupol still await rescue as one Russian attack after another is repelled by the military forces within. The Azov battalion troops vowed to fight on to the death. Their commander spoke of his soldiers' "superhuman efforts" in "difficult, bloody battles", spurred to ongoing defence.

Russian troops have now entered the maze of underground passageways prepared to overwhelm its defenders. Video of a female Ukrainian soldier in a dark bunker has emerged, singing songs known for their glorification of resistance fighters during the Second World War. "Be faithful to your Motherland until death. For us, Ukraine is above all", she sang.

"Our defenders are still there trying to protect this last piece of land in Mariupol", said Ukrainian MP Ivanna Klympush. The remaining resistance fighters need a "miracle" to survive the latest Russian onslaught, she stated, as Russia's defence ministry refuted having betrayed a ceasefire agreement to evacuate the remaining civilians still within the plant, forcing a rescue mission to be aborted.

Russia's Special Military Operation in Ukraine

"There was an attack on Kyiv -- it shocked me, not because I'm here but because Kyiv is a sacred city for Ukrainians and Russians alike."

"[The Security Council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine.This was] a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger."  

"Let me be very clear: [it...Security Council] failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war." 

"I am here to say to you Mr President [Zelenskyy], and to the people of Ukraine, we will not give up." "[While the Security Council had been] paralyzed, [the UN was taking other actions]." 

"The UN is the 1,400 staff members in Ukraine who are working to provide assistance, food, cash [and] other forms of support."

"Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis. Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance, many are elderly and in need of medical care, or have limited mobility. They need an escape route out of the apocalypse."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

 

"[The blasts are] proof that we need a quick victory over Russia."

"We must act quickly ... more weapons, more humanitarian efforts ... because every day Ukraine pays a high price for the protection of democracy and freedom."

Andrey Yermak, chief of staff, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Smoke rises after missiles landed at sunset on April 28, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (John Moore/Getty Images)

A member of the United Nations Security Council took especial notice with the UN's Secretary General appearing in Kyiv, to give him a surprise welcome. Warm, in the sense that two missiles blasted the historic city while Antonio Guterres was there, visiting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to see for himself what the population of Russia's neighbour is suffering under an endless barrage of bombs and missiles.

And while Mr. Guterres hugely regretted that the Security Council failed to intervene to convince one of its permanent members that invading another country with violent intent, even naming it a 'liberation' move under a special military operation is uncivilized at best, criminal in its most severe outlook. But then, Russia is accustomed to being misunderstood and blamed for events it is not responsible for. As Vladimir Putin would have it, he was provoked by American interference.

Moreover, the events described as war crimes -- rapes, destruction of civic infrastructure, mass graves are not his doing; they are in reality the malevolent orchestration developed by Ukraine that devised a grisly scenario of ghastly atrocities, enacted by Ukraine's own military and then ascribed to Russia. This is the kind of adversary Moscow faces, a fascist, neo-Nazi Ukrainian administration impudently accusing solicitous Russia of ill intentions toward Ukraine.

American and NATO provocations have brought this situation to pass, not Russian aggression. Russia will always enter the fray to protect its interests, to ensure that Russian-speaking citizens of a neighbouring country are not victimized by Russia-hating neighbours. Those two missiles fired at long range into Kyiv Thursday were just a friendly reminder that Moscow expects Kyiv to do the right thing and surrender its war-mongering government to Russia.

After all, Russian troops withdrew from the suburbs around Kyiv. To focus on the Donbas, where Luhansk and Donetsk are already declared Russian territories. The intention, of course, just to tidy things up, drive the Ukrainian military out of its lair there and leave both Republics in peace. Just incidentally Mariupol's destiny is to welcome its new status, contributing to the land bridge delivering  a direct route from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.

 

A destroyed apartment building in the southern port city of Mariupol

 Moscow is thoroughly displeased with its nemesis, the United States. Not only has the White House pledged a $33-billion gift in humanitarian and food security and weaponry aid to Ukraine, it has outright stated its hope that Ukrainian forces beyond repelling Russia's assault on the east, but succeed to a degree that Russia's military will be reduced in strength so it cannot continue to threaten its neighbours. Russia, a threat to its neighbours? What effrontery; the U.S. is revealing its mendacious spirit, wounding Russia beyond mere words.

Now entrenched in the east, Russian forces are focusing on the separatist Russian-speaking rebels' success in accessing the entire Donbas along with the secession provinces. The southern city of Kherson, the sole regional capital captured by Russia's military since the invasion had overnight blasts to awaken its still-stunned residents. Whose Wednesday pro-Ukrainian protests were faced by Russian troops using tear gas and stun grenades in their peaceful occupation.

Moscow has reported a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Issuing a stern warning that such attacks risk escalation to a significant degree. In the Russian city of Bellgorod two large explosions occurred. It is simply outrageous that Ukraine would take their battle with Russia into Russia, endangering the lives of innocent Russians...

.

Russia's Version: Ukraine Committing War Crimes

"The situation in Mariupol is difficult and hard. Fighting is happening right now. The Russian army is constantly calling on additional units to storm the city."

"But as of now the Russians haven't managed to completely capture it."

Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, Ukraine Defence Ministry spokesman 

"The number and scale of missile strikes on targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage on Russian territory committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime."

Russian Defence Ministry

In the city of Mariupol. The band of fighters who remain in the city are cut off from reinforcements, food and weapons

 

Russia invades and relentlessly attacks Ukraine, and has the unmitigated gall to warn Ukraine of severe consequences should it 'sabotage' Russian territory. The Ukrainian government's actions in defending itself marks it as a 'nationalist regime', but Russia's malevolent actions to destroy Ukraine's sovereignty doesn't betray the actions of a totalitarian nationalist regime. By fighting back, Moscow designates Ukraine's servicemen as 'terrorists'. Moscow really does believe that perception is reality and subjective interpretations however ridiculous, has the ring of truth.

Russia's invading troops laid siege to the Black Sea port city of Mariupol for close to a month, pounding it unstintingly with bombs and artillery shells, transforming a once-modern, vibrant city of 400,000 people to smouldering ruins, with those of the population not yet evacuated to safety, either dead or persisting in existing in the underground ruins of their once-stable city without light, heat, potable water and food.

This is medieval butchery writ large, that civilization was supposed to have overcome following the Second World War, in its vows that never again would such savagery be allowed to occur, and the world believed that never again would any state descend to the depths of humanity's most bitter and primitive urges to destroy what others have built, and in the process annihilate those with whom they disagree.

Russian President Vladimir Putin may not have surprised himself, but he certainly has taken the rest of the world by surprise in his decision that it would be worthwhile to make a pariah state of Russia in pursuit of his vision of power over a neighbour's destiny, including the power to command his troops to spare no one and destroy whatever represented the height of Ukraine's civil achievements in the interests of seeing it cower and beg for mercy.

The destruction continues apace, with ample evidence of the Russian military's willingness to obey their leader's instructions for annihilation and mayhem in pursuit of victory against a neighbour that resisted a proffered role as satellite revisited, preferring to go its own way. Leaving the Kremlin nonplussed and furious that a nation they felt would quickly fly a white flag of surrender instead fought back to wreak their own punishment on a presumptuous foe honouring neither courage nor the sanctity of life.

To its battle credits in its own defence, Ukraine has counter-assaulted, destroying tanks, armoured vehicles, warplanes and now the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the destroyer Moskva, leading to the evacuation of its 500-member crew and the sinking of the ship. The plan to mount a naval assault against Ukraine is now askew, to Moscow's incredulous rage.

 

Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

Bodies lie in the street in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, in Ukraine on April 2, 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the town.

If a symbol of courage and determination were sought, none could offer the same dramatic effect as the missiles Ukraine sunk the Moskva with. If a symbol of Russia's inhuman acts of violent totalitarianism were to be sought, look no further than the body counts in Bucha and Mariupol. If proof were needed of the primitive nature of hatred and lack of conscience, it could be found in scenes of Russian soldiers shooting at Ukrainian civilians desperately attempting to escape scenes of carnage.

Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk spoke of Russia's use of long-range bombers in attacking Mariupol since February 24, and turning to other cities to capture in Ukraine's east. Clarifying its major intent now, since its efforts in encircling Kyiv with the intention of removing Ukraine's government and bringing the country to its knees failed, Moscow now says it aims to capture the Donbas's two provinces partially in the hands of ethnic Russian separatists.

 

Defenders in Mariupol fight from the stronghold of the Azovstal steel works, fending off Russian troops in the final remaining stronghold of Ukrainian resistance, while Moscow claims to have captured the second Illich steel works, both owned by Metinvest, an empire owned by Ukraine's wealthiest businessman representing the backbone of the country's industrial east.

 

"We believe in the victory of Ukraine and plan to resume production after the end of hostilities", declared Metinvest's statement, adding the enterprise would never operate under Russian occupation. The loss to the Russian fleet of its largest vessel equipped with guided missiles meant to shoot down planes and attack shorelines, with radar providing air defence cover for the fleet, is irreplaceable.

 

Naval power was used to blockade Ukrainian ports with the threat looming of an amphibious coastal landing. The menace to Ukraine from the sea appears now to have been hugely diminished. A diplomatic note was delivered from Moscow to the United States with the caution of "unpredictable consequences" should Washington continue to provide Ukraine with weapons shipments.

 

Bodies of civilians are seen along a street in Mariupol. An estimated 100,000 people remain in the city — trapped without food, water, heat or electricity — during a siege that has made the city the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Mariupol: No Food, No Water, No Heat, No Hope

"This is not a martyr city. It is a fighter city. And we are not in the past, we are in the present, you understand?"

"While we are here, Mariupol continues to be Ukrainian."

"Have you thought about how it is to be here, to fight in such conditions? It's when they text you, 'How are you, buddy?' when five minutes ago you put down a black bag with a brother you knew for seven  years."

Systoslav Palamar, captain, Azov regiment, Ukraine

 

"Russian occupation forces used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military and civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an enemy drone."

"The victims have respiratory failure...the effects of the unknown substance are being clarified."

Azov Regiment

 

"Mariupol is the heart of this war today. It is beating. We're fighting. We're strong. And if it stops beating, we will be in a weaker position. They are people who are distracting a big part of the enemy forces. The stronger our position in Mariupol, the stronger our position in the east of the country will be."

"And if they are stronger, the negotiation table will be closer and we will have advantages in the dialogue."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"If and when it does fall, then those forces engaged there are free to attack north to attempt to join up with those forces that are attacking south from Izyum."

"The Ukrainians are now going to face effectively a pincer move."

"The fall of Mariupol has been long predicted by many and the forces there continue to fight extremely bravely."

Western Official

A Russian soldier patrols at a theatre in Mariupol on April 12, the day of a media trip organized by Russia's military. Ukrainian authorities are investigating unverified claims that the Russians used chemical weapons in this besieged Black Sea port.  Getty Images

Mariupol is the eastern Ukraine city that has held out under all the firepower that Moscow could muster to ensure a quick and early victory in occupying the city of 400,000 people, most of whom have fled in the month of unrelenting Russian bombardments. Bombs and artillery targeting civil infrastructure, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools; no civilian structure is immune from destruction, from maternity hospitals to children's hospitals. 

Although the claim of chemical weapons being used by Russia have not yet been verified, it follows an event where Eduard Basurin, speaking for the Russian-backed 'Donetsk People's Republic' informed Russian state television that the Kremlin may instruct Russian forces in Ukraine to resort to chemical weapons to make quicker work of overcoming Ukrainian resistance to Russia's occupation and control of Mariupol. 

 

Just as the global community and military experts from around the world are nonplussed over Russia's inability to make headway in its plan to swiftly obliterate Ukrainian resistance to the invasion, so too has Mariupol left an incredulous audience worldwide that it has succeeded in fending off the Russian plan,to the present. In the city, tens of thousands of residents have been killed by the invading troops, even while Russia has itself lost an astonishing number of its servicemen and generals overall.

 

Russian troops started their encirclement of Mariupol in early March, gradually tightening the noose   AFP via Getty Images

Mariupol was targeted at the beginning of March when Russian forces from Crimea and Donbas connected to encircle the city. Since that time the Russian forces have experienced a lag in supplies and equipment. Mariupol however, soon found itself deprived of essential utilities when water and electricity was cut off by Russian troops along with communication infrastructure. Since then, as intended, the city residents and its defenders trapped in the city have faced arduous living conditions.

 

Infrequent updates from residents of the city to the world press describe the harrowing conditions Mariupol's residents are forced to live under. Tens of thousands of the residents have managed one way or another, through perilous escape corridors, risking deliberate bombing and artillery attacks, to escape the besieged city. An estimated 100,000 residents remain trapped in the city facing constant shelling, and a lack of food, water and medicines.

 

Block by block, the city has been reduced through unrelenting bombing, to a faint outline of what it so recently was; a modern city. Everywhere can be seen the bombed-out exteriors of ruined buildings, their interiors gutted, rubble piled high. And under that rubble, the crushed remains of what were once thriving human beings. The Azov's Palamar spoke by video from the bunker he was sheltered in, of steep casualties where subalterns were forced to take command of battalions, and a constant dearth of potable water.

 

Vicious street-to-street, house-to-house battles see a few thousand Ukrainian marines, border guards and Azov regiments fighting Russian infantry. The Ukrainian defences are fighting for their country, their ideals, their survival. The Russian forces are fighting to achieve the goals they were commanded to bring as a victory to their president. It is believed that the Ukrainian forces are confined to a few isolated pockets they are defending. The largest on the Azovstal Iron and Steel works.

 

Ukraine's 36th Marines posted a communique that it was close to running out of ammunition, anticipating the "final battle".  "From now on, it is hand-to-hand combat, then death for some of us and captivity for others", the communique noted. The response on social media by Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the mayor of Mariupol, was that the marines' Facebook page had been hacked to produce a false post.

It is believed Ukraine's forces have been forced back to the port area and the Azovstal iron and steel plant   Anadolu News Agency, via Getty

 

 

Vladimir Putin's 'Special Military Operation'

"With no information coming out of a city, no pictures of demolished buildings and dying children, the Russian forces could do whatever they wanted."

"The only radio you could catch broadcast twisted Russian lies -- that Ukrainians were holding Mariupol hostage, shooting at buildings, developing chemical weapons."

Oleksiy Arestovych, Ukrainian presidential adviser

 

"One bomb at a time, the Russians cut electricity, water, food supplies and finally, crucially, the cellphone, radio and television towers."

"When we [Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka] arrived, emergency workers were still pulling bloodied pregnant women from the ruins [of the Mariupol maternity hospital, bombed by Russian planes]."

"We had recorded so many dead people and dead children, an endless line. I didn't understand why he [Vladimir Putin] thought still more deaths could change anything. I was wrong."

"The propaganda was so strong that some people we talked to believed it despite the evidence of their own eyes."

"The message was constantly repeated, in Soviet style; Mariupol is surrounded. Surrender your weapons."

Mstyslav Chernov, video journalist, The Associated Press 

 

"Everything is destroyed. Where can we go?

"We're cooking over a fire -- for now we still have a bit of food and some firewood."

Irina Chernenko, Mariupol university librarian

Shelling by Russian forces has prevented civilians from being able to evacuate the besieged port city  Reuters

 

What else could it be termed as but a war crime, the constant aerial bombardment of a besieged city where hundreds of thousands of citizens are trapped with no escape routes, amidst a shortage of food and medicine, no heating, no electricity, where there is no outside communication and where the bombing of civilian infrastructure is raising the number of dead city dwellers day by day. The southeastern city of Mariupol, a prize that continues to elude the Russian military is beyond dire straits.

The devastated city was host to a journalist/photographer duo working for The Associated Press to obtain an inside story of what is transpiring within the beleaguered city and how its residents are coping with a no-holds-barred military campaign launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his legacy scheme to bring Ukraine back into the fold of the Russian Federation on its way to assuming the stranglehold re-conquest of its neighbours in eastern Europe.

The two have since emerged from the city, prepared to report on the infrastructure carnage they witnessed and the sight of hundreds of dead civilians, too numerous to honour with private funerals, instead being placed in mass burial pits, where the danger on site of being struck by missiles is such that families cannot attend even those basic funera-rite burials. 

Mariupol's position as a key port on the Sea of Azov is an integral part of Russian President Putin's plan to absorb Eastern Ukraine, its possession providing a direct route from Russia through the Donbas and the Crimean peninsula, to the Odesa port facilities on the Black Sea. In Mariupol, the strategic gateway Putin yearns to possess air, land and sea bombing raids flattened areas of the city driving hundreds of thousands of its residents into whatever shelters they could find.

 

Some of those shelters in buildings, housing theatres, shopping malls, hospitals, have become death traps for the civilians seeking haven and protection from the bombs. Buildings bombed by Russian planes collapsing into rubble covering the very 'shelters' being used to provide safety to women, children, the elderly, suffocating and crushing them under the weight of the destroyed building above, leaving desperate rescuers to find any still alive, while the shelling continues.

 

Civilians trapped in Mariupol are seen on the road on Sunday. (Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

 

Russia gave Mariupol a deadline of 5 a.m. on Monday past to surrender the city to the military surrounding and bashing it. "There can be no question of any surrender", responded Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk. "What's happening now in Mariupol is a massive war crime, destroying everything, bombarding and killing everybody". The bombing represented a "massive war crime", stated Josep Borrell, foreign policy representative for the European Union.

"To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will e remembered for centuries to come." The attackers loosing endless munitions on Mariupol would be held "responsible for war crimes", vowed Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Buildings charred, windows blown out, bodies lying along the road wrapped in blankets in that part of the city held by Russian troops. Nearby, groups of men dig graves beside the road.

 

Mariupol officials speak of 2,300 citizens of the city whose lives have thus far been destroyed. Thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the conflict. The figures for the Russian military alone stand at 10,000 dead, including four generals and an admiral. The loss of Russian war machines, destroyed tanks, artillery, armour and planes alone is monumental; the death toll and the destroyed war machines in such a short time unheard of in modern warfare.  

Ukrainian resistance has taken Russia by surprise. It is celebrated world-wide. No active outside help is available for Ukraine. Moral support and weaponry aplenty; otherwise, it is on its own against one of the most formidably equipped militaries in the world. The Ukraine military using Soviet-era armaments, Russia in possession of the most technically advanced weapons conceivable. 

 

And the Ukrainian military is holding its own, an inspiration to underdogs everywhere. "I think Moscow is searching for something it can use to declare a victory. Taking the Donbas and having leverage to attain concessions from Kyiv is probably what they're looking to accomplish at this point", asserted Michael Kofman, specialist on the Russian military at Washington think tank, CNA.