March 31, 2022

Annihilating Mariupol: When is it a War Crime?


Annihilating Mariupol: When is it a War Crime?
Alla, 87, a survivor of Russia's devastation of Mariupol | Photograph by Haley Bader

Mariupol is reaching its limit.

Daily shelling. An attack on a maternity and children’s hospital, then claims from the Russian government that it was a military base. Dead children, a bombed art school. Bodies buried in parks, city squares, on street sides, in mass graves. A decimated theater that was sheltering over a thousand, and a hunt for the city’s last international journalists.

Russian radio is broadcasting lies that Ukrainian soldiers were the ones holding Mariupol hostage.

mariupol destruction 1
The left shore of Mariupol | Mariupol Now on Telegram

Mariupol is now a virtual information desert. Basic amenities such as electricity and water were cut before the Russian military destroyed the cell phone, radio, and television towers. A lack of communication is causing panic inside the city and killing morale outside; without any connection, it is far easier for misinformation to thrive.

Alla, an 87-year-old survivor of the Mariupol siege who escaped to Congaz, Moldova, insisted again, and then again, that she was telling the “pure truth,” like her mother taught her.

Living underground for nearly three weeks due to ceaseless shelling, Alla wanted to sit in direct sunlight rather than retreat to the shade of the pavilion of the Moldovan hotel where her family found refuge.

gagauz hotel
The hotel Gagauzi Sofrasi in Congaz, Moldova, where Alla and her family sheltered after escaping Mariupol | Photograph by Haley Bader

There were 25 people in the small basement room where they hid, and because they could not go outside, they used plastic bags as a toilet. Alla can barely walk, and when it came her turn to relieve herself, two young men would lift her above a bucket. “In front of everyone,” she said.

Crying, Alla explained how they had no light or water – they gathered it from the heating system. “It was brown, this water. They filled up [anything they had], let it settle.” She slept on a wooden board covered in knots, her spine rubbing against them. “There must be a wound, how it hurts…”

mariupol destruction 2
The supermarket Shchyryy Kum in Mariupol | Mariupol Now on Telegram

Mariupol, located on the Azov Sea, is a strategic port city. Occupying the city would give Russia control of a land bridge between the separatist region of Donbass and the annexed territory of Crimea, and thus power over 80 percent of the Black Sea coast. Moreover, Russian control of the territory would eliminate Ukraine’s use of this port, which is a hub for steel, corn, and coal exports.

Losing the city may also hobble the morale of Ukraine’s fighting forces.

Denis Hulai, 24, and his family also managed to flee the city on March 20. While before the war, Mariupol was “one of the most beautiful and modern cities,” Denis said, it is now “just terrible.” Corpses have been lying in front of his house since March 8.

ilyicha steel plant mariupol
The Ilyicha Steel Plant in Mariupol | Wikimedia Commons

The atrocities committed in Mariupol may be heinous enough to be judged as war crimes. Such offenses include intentional attacks on civilians, destruction of infrastructure civilians depend on to survive, and neglecting to care for the sick or injured. Specific examples of abuses in Mariupol are the bombing of a theater with the word “children” marked on its grounds and possibly the use of cluster bombs within the city’s limits.

“Marauders stole the food [in the city], and the shops that remained intact were somehow still selling [goods] using reserves [of stock] that could not be replenished due to the enemy ring around the city,” Denis said. “The Russians did not let humanitarian aid in.” Many who remain in Mariupol are now sick from lack of food, water, and medicine.

mariupol destruction 3
A residency a little past Grushevskaya Street in Mariupol | Mariupol Now on Telegram

When you leave the city, Denis said, “[you need to] be sure to hang white ribbons on the car and write that civilians [are inside].”

“I drove almost all over the city except for the left-bank district… absolutely everything was destroyed. There were bursts of machine guns on Kirova Street, the city center was shelled,” Denis explained.

“We drove in a column and a shell fell literally 100 to 150 meters from our car. [There are] people walking with bags to the checkpoint, a lot of homeless people, various marginalized individuals, a huge amount of burnt military equipment, a crazy number of cars smashed.”

It is unsure how much longer Mariupol will stand, as its mayor has called for a full evacuation.

 

You Might Also Like

Language of War
  • September 01, 2014

Language of War

A look a the neologisms of the Ukraine war, and Russia's neoactivist Duma.
A Southern City By the Sea
  • November 01, 2005

A Southern City By the Sea

Had the tide of history turned just a bit differently, Taganrog could have become Russia’s new capital instead of St. Petersburg. Take a visit to this sleepy southern town on the Sea of Azov.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955