Vadym Boytchenko was traveling to France to participate in the city of tomorrow university. He castigates Russian propaganda around the reconstruction of Mariupol, and tells of life in a city devastated by a “carpet of bombs”.
“You have to understand that living there is impossible”, confides Saturday, July 8, on franceinfo, Vadym Boytchenko, the mayor of Mariupol. The city has been under Russian occupation since the start of the war in Ukraine, after heavy fighting. 500 days after the start of the war, the 46-year-old former Azovstal worker gave Franceinfo a rare interview.
>> REPORT. War in Ukraine: Mariupol, the martyr city that the Kremlin dreams of transforming into a showcase of “New Russia”
He is currently in France where he participated this Friday in Chantilly in the Oise at the university of the city of tomorrow. Mariupol, a strategic port in Donbass, on the shores of the Sea of Azov, fell into Russian hands in the spring of 2022. The maternity ward was bombed as well as a theater in which between 500 and 600 people perished. The mayor now works from Dnipro, with his team of 52 people. Of the city’s 400,000 inhabitants, 150,000 stayed behind. Mariupol “is the only city where the Russian plane used bomb carpets”continues Vadym Boytchenko. “They say we are afraid today of a 3rd World War”but “this 3rd world war, we lived it”.
franceinfo: Is it difficult to be mayor of an occupied city?
Vadym Boychenko: Of course it is very difficult. It is very painful to see what they have done to my town. They destroyed it. One out of two buildings no longer exists. It started on March 9, 2022. Russian planes arrived, and with a relentless pace, every 20 minutes, they dropped bombs on our city. This is the only city where the Russian air force literally used carpet bombs.
“In two years of German fascist occupation during World War II, 10,000 people were shot. There, in 86 days, 25,000 people died.”
Vadym Boychenko, Mayor of Mariupolat franceinfo
People died in their homes, people died in the streets. It is said that we are afraid today of a 3rd world war, but this 3rd world war, we lived it.
How do people currently live there? Do you manage to know, to exchange with them?
You have to understand that living there is impossible. Coexist, yes, it is possible. Waiting for change to happen is also possible. But there is no life there.
Russian propaganda says precisely the opposite!
Yes of course, the propaganda is working at full speed. They lied before the war, and they continue. They say they are rebuilding the city. You can’t say they’re not doing it, that’s what’s happening. But the question is: where did they build? What quality for these new homes that they built very quickly? Then, you have to understand that there are no conditions for living properly. When you have no water, no electricity, no heating, is that a life? And if we look at the number of rebuilt homes, that represents 3%! They’ve destroyed half the city, and they’re rebuilding 3%…that’s a lot, isn’t it?
You came to Paris precisely to talk about the reconstruction of the city. Do you believe in it, one day, in this possibility of rebuilding your city?
Yes, and when we talk about reconstruction, we are talking with real figures. How long will it take to rebuild a city like Mariupol, as it was before? It will take 20 years! It’s impossible to do it in a year. And this is where the question arises: why are the Russians so active in Mariupol? We understand, they do it for their propaganda, for internal purposes. They want to show that this idea, which they sold to the Russians, that it is about the liberation of Russian speakers, is a reality, that it is not about the murder of Ukrainians, that it is not This is not a genocide of Ukrainians.
“When they show what they’ve built on TV, they’re filming from one angle. But if you moved that camera just a little bit, you could see all the horror they’ve put Mariupol in.”
Vadym Boychenko, Mayor of Mariupolat franceinfo
This horror shows all the wickedness, the ferocity that accompanied the artillery fire. And this is where another question comes up: why were they so cruel in Mariupol? I see two answers. First, they wanted to scare. Then they were jealous.
That is, jealousy, can you explain?
They saw the path that Ukraine was taking, and all the projects that had been carried out in Mariupol. Mariupol has changed enormously over the past seven years. We have gone from a Soviet city to a modern, European and Ukrainian city. And in this city came people from the occupied territories. And Russia, a year before the war, had closed the passage between the occupied region of Donetsk and Mariupol, so that people who came from Donetsk to buy food, and medicines could not see how the city had changed . We had new transport, we had built new roads, kindergartens, schools. The city was beginning to have a European face. And Putin understood that he was losing Ukraine. That’s why he made this terrifying decision of a full-scale invasion of the country. It is jealousy born of all this progress, of this path that Ukraine has chosen.
Interview with the mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boytchenko, at the franceinfo microphone by Virginie Pironon
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