“Do you hear Putin?” wrote Valeria’s message. “It’s completely crazy. “There is a special military operation.” Iryna and her daughters, Albin (left) and Valeria At 4.08 a.m. Valeria once again sent the message: “Mom, Kyiv is being bombed.” Sitting in her small apartment on the first floor of a nine-story apartment building in the green Kirovsky residential area of Mariupol, a port city in the Sea of Azov whose name has now become ill, Iryna knew what to do. He had already packed a small carrying bag containing money, some jewelry to exchange for food and shelter, and family documents. Irina with a two-year-old family member who left with them on February 24 Her husband, Alexander, 46, said that morning that they could have a day or two left to settle their affairs. “I told him, ‘We have to leave, this is the last chance.’ Irina and Alexander As Iryna hurriedly packed her suitcase, Alexandr took the Mercedes W212 to fill it with gas at the Western Oil Group gas station at the back of the apartment building. A large number of cars had arrived there first. As Alexander waited nervously, the night sky suddenly lit up with a deafening roar, a noise unknown even in a city near the front lines of the eight-year battle between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Donetsk. The war had taken Mariupol – and has not yet been abandoned. Motorists queue to leave Mariupol. Photo: Carlos Barría / Reuters This is a story, based on diary entries and interviews with those who have survived an unimaginable ordeal of endurance, a rapid and brutal destruction of a city in which the best and worst of humanity have emerged. It is an ongoing story full of death, misery and sorrow documented and told through tears. As Iryna and Alexandr, along with their parents, a niece and her two-year-old son, drove north from Mariupol on the Volodarskaya motorway, Nadiia Sukhorukova, 51, a journalist, slept in her apartment just over a mile north. down town. A Ukrainian military installation was damaged by Russian bombardment outside Mariupol. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Booms and explosions
“Even in a dream, I heard an explosion and explosions,” she wrote in her diary. “And then the author, Galia, sent a message to the group chat, ‘This is guys, get up!’” At 8:23 a.m., the mayor of Mariupol spoke to his city on television. He called on everyone to stay calm. “Due to the current situation in the city, the work of schools, kindergartens and other social infrastructure institutions, except for hospitals and health centers, has been temporarily suspended,” said Vadim Boichenko. “We are also opening all the shelters in the city. “All utilities and public transport continue to operate.” Within 20 minutes, seven buildings on the left bank of Mariupol were engulfed in flames after a Russian bombing that took a day to extinguish, killing four people, including a child. New bombings followed at 3:17 p.m. Three hours later, instructions were issued on how to operate under fire and the rules of a new curfew were imposed between 22:00 and 6:00. For those who wanted to leave, an additional train service was set up. Ukrainian tanks are moving in the city. Photo: Carlos Barría / Reuters Throughout the city, people frantically checked the roofs for “labels” after hearing that the Russians had blocked buildings with signs so that their jets could hit their targets. Nadiia wrote that night: “In the morning my brother’s wife was picking up my little nieces to the sound of gunshots. They were scared and tried to act. “The children were sitting in the hallway on a stool with jackets and hats with huge packages in their hands. These are their “emergencies”. “At my feet was the kindest dog in the world, which was also very scared. Together they left the huge multi-storey building for the basement of a private house. It is safer there during the bombing. “They are afraid to return home.” One child sleeps in an armchair while others stand in a shelter during the Russian bombing. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP The next clear morning, many in Mariupol woke up and found that their electricity had been cut off. By the end of the day, about 40,000 were living in darkness. The power cables on the left bank of the city were damaged. Officials were adamant it was a temporary mistake. The council also decided to take water from a reservoir due to the interruption of the main supply from the river Siverski Donets. At 20.17, a Russian rocket hit a school. It was empty. At 7 a.m. the next day, the council reassured the population that all would be well and the trams and buses were operating normally. Four hours later, public transport was temporarily suspended for public safety reasons. The village of Sartana, a few miles northeast of Mariupol, was heavily bombed. School damaged by bombing. Photo: Nikolay Ryabchenko / Reuters
“Crime against humanity”
Boychenko’s tone changed. The attacks were a “crime against humanity”. Everything possible was done to keep the lights on and the heating on. The next morning, the Internet was shut down. People on the Viber messaging service received anonymous messages, most likely from Russian hackers, informing them that all communications would soon be cut off. Residents of Sartana were evacuated from their homes in what they believed was the relative security of Mariupol. As of noon, there were reports of direct fire against civilians. Bombs fell on apartment buildings on Peremohy Main Avenue and Horlivska Street. At 14.26 that day a fatal announcement was made – the Donetsk Regional Drama Theater was opening as a shelter. By 21:35 the council had to deny that Mariupol would soon be without water. The curfew was extended and the saboteurs were arrested. Reports of looting have multiplied. The city was collapsing in disorder. “The army, the territorial defense and the law enforcement will act as hard as required by the war,” Boychenko said. “Raiders and saboteurs will be eliminated on the spot.” Journalist Nadiia Sukhorukova. Photo: Facebook On February 28, Nadiia wrote: “We have no shelter at home, and what it is, is far away. We just can not get there. Therefore, during the bombing, the common corridor is turned into Noah’s ark. Together with the people, a cat, two dogs, a guinea pig – a local lover and a cheeky hamster are having a terrible time. “There is absolute unity in the corridor, even between those neighbors who could not stand each other before. Picturesque Mariupol “One hundred percent mutual understanding between those who were outraged that the animals were screaming in the street. Now do not care. “Ukrainian cats and dogs are just perfect.” Until March 1, the bombing was continuous, a suffocating blanket of noise and fear. “We walked the dog under bombardment and took a picture of my mother’s avalanches in the yard. “Spring has come,” Nadiia wrote. But the tension wears out. “I want to sleep constantly. Constantly. As if a drowsy elephant had entered me. “I nod in the affirmative, even during horrific bombings.” Fires are raging in a residential area of the city. Photo: Ayburl Achenko / Reuters That day everyone was instructed to turn off the boilers, refrigerators, stoves, kettles, air conditioners and heaters to keep the lights on. The traffic lights were closed. “The light is off, there is no water, no heat,” Nadiia wrote. “Dead silence in Mariupol. The city seemed to be in ruins. “Raindrops are hitting the windowsill.” There were 14 hours of incessant bombardment on March 2 by multiple rocket launchers mounted on trucks, mortars, shells and initial vehicles, twin-engine aircraft, before the Kremlin turned to low-flying SU-24, a supersonic, Soviet-style aircraft. They hit the maternity hospital and the apartment buildings. It was, said the mayor, “the most difficult and brutal day.” The lights of Mariupol would not be on again. On March 5, a humanitarian corridor was seemingly agreed upon. People could leave in their cars. Along the way, the Russians mocked those who escaped with artillery shells in the Zaporizhia region, northwest of the city. Those hoping to escape were told to run back to the shelter. The same thing happened the next day. And again, and again. People pass in front of a damaged apartment building. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Mariupol: a “hero city” in ruins
Until March 7, Mariupol received the most unwanted garlands, as the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, was called a “hero city”. No road was intact. Garbage bodies on the ground, buried and rotten among the ashes, glass, plastic and metal fragments. Empty eyes look at the frightened children. “A woman had her arm, leg and head cut off,” Nadiia wrote. “I am sure I will die soon. It is a matter of days. In this city everyone is constantly waiting for death. “I wish it wasn’t so scary.” People are receiving humanitarian aid. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP Families hunting in the basements of the city center were left to drink water from puddles or collect drains from drains and distribute food rescue scraps from burned houses. The only salvation was the volunteers who filled barrels from a canal with dirty water to distribute them from basement to basement. On March 8, a six-year-old boy died in Mariupol from dehydration. She was buried under the rubble that killed her mother and was discovered very late. The next day the children’s hospital was bombed. Emergency workers and volunteers transport an injured pregnant woman from a maternity ward damaged by bombing. The baby was born dead. Half an hour later, the mother also died. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP The number of dead civilians was officially 1,207, but as if mocking him …
