More than forty days of intense bombardments and fierce fighting. The town of Mariupol, on the shores of the Sea of Azov in southeastern Ukraine, is a major target for Russian and separatist forces. Both a strategic port and a symbolic point in the war led by Vladimir Putin, Mariupol resists at all costs, despite the bombs and the tragedies that have occurred since the beginning of the siege. Franceinfo looks back on the major events that have marked this city that has become a martyr and almost completely destroyed.
A seat quickly set up
Mariupol is a Russian-speaking city of some 450,000 inhabitants. This strategic port now constitutes “the last lock for the Russians to break before the total occupation of southern and eastern Ukraine”, summarizes Carole Grimaud-Potter, professor of geopolitics of Russia. Its conquest would therefore allow the Russians to consolidate their territorial gains and connect Crimea, annexed in 2014, to Donbass.
“Marioupol is also a high place for the Azov battalion, this group designated as neo-Nazi by Moscow, which is the enemy to beat”adds journalist Luc Lacroix, France 2 correspondent in Moscow and special envoy to Ukraine.
“The capture of Mariupol would be a double victory for Russia: that against the Azov battalion and the capture of one of the largest cities of the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk.”
Luc Lacroix, reporterat franceinfo
Very quickly, the Russian forces and the pro-Russian separatists therefore concentrated their attacks on Mariupol. On March 1, ‘Half the town dohas more electricity and communications become bad”, says a resident to RFI. The next day, the situation deteriorates “from hour to hour”, according to a resident to AFP. The shops lack water and food, public transport is stopped… On March 3, the mayor of the city, Vadym Boïtchenko, assures that the Russians and the separatists “Destroyed the bridges and the trains to prevent us from taking out our wives, children and old people. They prevent us from getting supplies. They seek to impose a blockade”.
Civilians trapped
Besieged, the civilians had no choice but to take shelter, hoping that a lull would allow them to flee the fighting. Their situation fuels tensions during negotiations between the belligerents and countries like France and Turkey which seek to mediate.
Moscow first puts on the table the creation of humanitarian corridors for civilians… towards Russia and Belarus. A judged proposal “completely immoral” by Kyiv. Pro-Russian forces accuse Ukraine of holding back civilians “in the towns” and use it “directly and indirectly, including as a human shield, which is of course a war crime”reports Le Figaro.
The first mass evacuations finally took place in early April. On board buses and private cars, more than 3,000 people managed to leave the city and reach Zaporijia, 230 km to the northwest, by unsecured convoys. On site, France Télévisions reporter Maryse Burgot meets refugees traumatized by the violence they have witnessed.
Among the civilians who have managed to leave the hell of Mariupol are children lastingly marked by the scenes of war. “The children seem to have gotten used to the bombardments and the cloistered life”notes a pediatrician from Zaporizhia interviewed by The world : “The symptoms are mild – diarrhea, vomiting – but it is above all the fear that is palpable. They often refuse blood tests.”
A strike on a motherhood that outrages
March 9 put Mariupol on Ukraine’s map for world public opinion. In the early afternoon, a powerful explosion devastated three buildings. Quickly, the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region announced that medical structures in Mariupol had been affected. From the videos published on social networks, the France Télévisions image verification unit identifies the place of the powerful detonation: the municipal hospital n ° 3 of the city, which houses a pediatric hospital and a maternity hospital.
A children’s clinic #Mariupol took a lot of damage today.
Video filmed here: 47.09656912368629, 37.533339605420785 pic.twitter.com/upLFbWtYg4
– The FranceTV Revealers (@RevelateursFTV) March 9, 2022
Images of dazed victims, including pregnant women, go around the world. After an initial assessment of 17 wounded, the municipality announces that three people died in the bombardments, including a child.
International reactions are unanimous. “This bombing at the Mariupol maternity hospital is inhumane, heinous, cruel and tragic”, declares Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, on franceinfo. Emmanuel Macron condemns for his part “with the greatest firmness” a “unworthy act of war”while the UN recalls that health facilities in Ukraine should not “never be a target”.
On the side of Moscow, we brandish the card of “fake news”. The Russian army claims that “the alleged airstrike is a total stage set-up for the purpose of provocation in order to maintain the anti-Russian agitation of the Western public”, and argues in particular that an influencer was paid to play the false victim. What a careful observation of the scene allows to deny.
Luc Lacroix and his team have not been in this maternity, but in another, still standing, where since the beginning of the siege, several babies have been born. He has strong memories of this report and of his meeting with a woman who had just given birth: “She told us that she felt guilty of giving birth to a child of war.”
A theater housing civilians razed
A week later, on March 16, the city’s Drama Theater was bombed. In the afternoon, Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, publishes striking photos before and after the explosion. We see a thick white smoke rising from the building which is adjoining no other, which raises questions about the possibility of a shooting error.
Another horrible war crime in Mariupol. Massive Russian attack on the Drama Theater where hundreds of innocent civilians were hiding. The building is now fully ruined. Russians could not have known this was a civilian shelter. Save Mariupol! Stop Russian war criminals! pic.twitter.com/bIQLxe7mli
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) March 16, 2022
Local authorities fear the worst, as the building serves as a refuge for more than one “thousand people”, according to the town hall. A photo of the theatre, consulted and analyzed by AFP, shows that the word “children” was written on the pavement, in huge white letters and in Russian, on the front and the back of the building. A description confirmed by a satellite snapshot, taken on March 14, and shared by the American space technology company Maxar Technologies.
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In The world, a theater director, Lioudmyla Kolossovytch, who was able to flee the city, reports the stories of her collaborators who remained there. “It was pretty well organized. About sixty theater employees had taken refuge there and helped the volunteers. Stage costumes were distributed to those who were cold. The stage sets and the backs of the seats of the spectators were burned to keep warm.” One of her former collaborators detailed to her how she was able to escape from the enclosure. “She said to me, ‘You can’t imagine, I had to step on corpses!'”
After the bombing, Joe Biden accuses Vladimir Putin of being a “war criminal”. As for the attack on the maternity ward, Russia denies being behind it and accuses the Azov battalion. According to Mariupol authorities, three hundred people died under the rubble of the theater. Impossible to establish a precise assessment, assures Luc Lacroix, who was able to penetrate inside, because the Russian and separatist forces “have refused access to the cellars in us saying it was for our safety”.
One last battle in the Azovstal factory
After forty days of siege, the city is devastated. The living conditions of the inhabitants, who survived and whose neighborhoods were taken over by Russian and pro-Russian forces, are improving a little. “They can leave their homes”notes Luc Lacroix.
“The fighting is a little further away and even if there is still no water, electricity or heating, food aid arrives in boxes marked with the Z of the Russian offensive and is distributed .”
Luc Lacroix, reporterat franceinfo
The port appears to have come under the control of pro-Russian separatists from Donetsk and more than a thousand “Ukrainian soldiers voluntarily laid down their arms and surrendered”, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday. Qualified information “Russian propaganda” by the deputy mayor of the city.
The last Ukrainian forces are entrenched in the huge Azovstal factory, located by the sea, and which has several underground levels. “There would be between 2,000 and 3,000 resisting and circulating in this labyrinth, but they are completely cut off from the rest of the Ukrainian forces”, believes Luc Lacroix. Pounded by the bombardments, these buildings, built in the Soviet era in solid concrete, seem impossible to raze.
“The Russian army and the pro-Russian forces are therefore advancing building by building, there is a lot of street fighting with automatic weapon fire.”
Luc Lacroix, reporterat franceinfo
After more than a month of heavy shelling and fighting, more than 20,000 people died in Mariupol during the offensive, according to regional authorities. “We totally ignore the results of this battle, no one can know.tempers Luc Lacroix. There were obviously deaths, but you have to be very modest about what you see and what you know. Nobody can have a global view of the situation.” One thing is certain, concludes the journalist from France 2, “the city is practically taken, its fall seems inevitable”.