Fall of Mariupol could hide evidence of war crimes from the world and boost Russia's offensive

The Ukrainian army announced late Monday that its troops had completed their “combat mission” at the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, which for weeks had been the last major sentry in a city otherwise occupied by Russian forces. Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers were evacuated from the facility and efforts were made to evacuate those still inside.

Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. There, Russia carried out deadly attacks on a maternity ward and bombed a theater where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge from the violence.

Now there are fears that the evidence of further atrocities will be lost forever.

Before the Kremlin took control of Mariupol, the city council accused the Russian armed forces of trying to clear evidence, using mobile crematoria to remove bodies and identifying witnesses to “atrocities” through filtration camps. DailyExpertNews was unable to verify that claim.

“Murders are covering their tracks,” the municipality claimed.

The Kremlin has denied many of these claims, including using filtration camps to cover up wrongdoing and targeting civilians in Mariupol.

A symbol of resistance

Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance during weeks of relentless Russian attacks. While most of the city had already fallen, the defenders held out at Azovstal, where at one point as many as 1,000 civilians had taken refuge. Ukrainian officers described a bleak situation at the steel mill as supplies of food and water dwindled and hundreds of injured were stranded without proper medical care.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously said “tens of thousands” have died in Mariupol, while the regional military governor last month said as many as 22,000 were killed, though the death toll is difficult to verify in the fog of war. The mayor of Mariupol estimates that 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been damaged, 40% of which is beyond repair.

Images of Mariupol’s destruction have become symbols of the Kremlin’s use of arbitrary firepower in Ukraine, drawing strong visual parallels to the leveling of cities like Aleppo in Syria or the Chechen capital of Grozny.

On April 15, 2022, Russian troops can be seen on the streets of Mariupol.

According to Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, Mariupol’s control is critical to Russia’s efforts to expand the wider Donbas region—beyond the separatist-controlled areas – to bring.

“It is unrealistic to declare control of the Donbas without actual control over the major cities,” he said in an email to DailyExpertNews last month.

Kofman said Mariupol’s fall should free up manpower and logistics for the Kremlin’s campaign in the rest of Donbas.

But keeping the city under Moscow’s thumb also requires significant resources. Russia likely needs all the troops it can muster for its offensive in eastern Ukraine, where it has refocused its military efforts after withdrawing from other parts of the country.

Artillery fire and air strikes continue along the front lines in Luhansk and Donetsk, but the Ukrainian military says it is repelling Russian attempts to take territory.

A local resident walks through a street past burned-out buses in Mariupol on April 19, 2022.

Analysts say Russian forces were simply trying to squash Mariupol to make it easier to control — especially given the history of the man in charge of Russia’s war effort, General Alexander Dvornikov.

Dvornikov led a division in the Kremlin’s pacification campaign in Chechnya from 2000 to 2003 and led Russian forces in Syria from 2015 to 2016. In both cases, the Russian military left devastation and bombarded civilian areas with no regard for casualties.

“He basically destroyed and destroyed the second largest Syrian city of Aleppo. And his strategy was simply to bomb everything that was still alive, target civilian infrastructure – hospitals and schools – and then basically take over what was there. was left,” said Orysia Lutsevych. , a research fellow at the British think tank Chatham House.

“It’s a similar strategy that we’re already seeing in Mariupol,” she said last month, while the fighting was still going on.

Ukraine’s military intelligence has already accused Dvornikov of overseeing war crimes committed against the civilian population in Mariupol during the siege.

A complete accounting

Of the 450,000 people who lived in the city before the war, a third had already left by mid-April, Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko said. There are only 100,000 inhabitants, and those who have fled bring with them the horror stories of war.

Some residents who managed to leave the city have said they were ordered by Russian troops to evacuate to Russia through so-called “filtration camps” — a practice that brought back painful memories of Joseph Stalin’s forced relocation of millions to remote parts of the city. the city. Soviet Union. Russian troops have also reportedly denied access to civilians.

A view shows graves of civilians killed during the Ukraine-Russia conflict along the road in Mariupol on April 18, 2022.

Many said they hid for days in cellars to hide from the relentless artillery fire. A resident previously told DailyExpertNews he was standing in line waiting for fresh drinking water when an explosion killed three people in front of him, including one who was beheaded.

The Kremlin has denied many of these claims, including using filtration camps to cover up wrongdoing and targeting civilians in Mariupol.

But according to Petro Andrushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Russian forces are soon clearing some of the areas worst hit by their offensive.

“Surprisingly, the plan to clean up the rubble coincides with the places of greatest destruction … the drama theater, Myru Avenue, and now it is suddenly the hospital,” Andrushchenko said, referring to hospital number three, which opened in March. was heavily bombed. †

Video of the aftermath of the bombing showed heavily pregnant women being taken from hospital; at least one later died.

A Telegram channel that appears to be affiliated with the city’s new Russian-backed government has announced temporary work being offered “to gather the dead” as well as in city improvements.

A full account of the destruction there may be impossible as the city comes under complete Russian control.

The magnitude of the alleged war crimes committed in liberated northern Ukrainian cities, such as Bucha and Borodianka, only became clear after Russian troops fled.

Those in Mariupol could have endured the same kind of abuse. If the city remains under Moscow’s control, a true account of what happened there may be lost to history.