A woman who survived last year’s bombing of a packed theater in Mariupol compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s late-night visit to the occupied city to “when a serial killer returns to the scene of the crime”.
DailyExpertNews’s Ivan Watson spoke to Maria Kutnyakova earlier in March last year after she and her family escaped Mariupol into Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Kutnyakova again spoke to Watson by phone on Sunday, saying that Putin had visited Mariupol at night “because they didn’t want to take the real images of the devastated city.”
“They didn’t want to show that Mariupol is still a catastrophe. There are many destroyed buildings. That people are living in a bad situation,” says Kutnyakova, who now works online for a Ukrainian NGO from the safety of Vilnius, Lithuania.
“Russian propaganda showed this image of a few buildings they built. They want people to believe that Mariupol is a very beautiful, beautiful place now. But that’s not it,’ said Kutnyakova.
She told DailyExpertNews that prices in Mariupol are “crazy,” people in the city have no medicine or heating, and problems persist with communications, electricity, water and gas.
Kutnyakova said all 15 of her relatives and several close friends who lived in Mariupol have left the city. She said her family has been unable to find her uncle since last spring and they fear he has passed away.
About the bombing: About 300 people were killed, according to city leaders, when Russian forces bombed the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol, which served as a shelter for residents.
The March 16, 2022 bombing was one of Russia’s most brutal attacks on civilians during the first offensive.
Before the attack, the word “CHILDREN” was painted on the ground outside the building in giant Russian letters. As many as 1,300 people took shelter inside.
Russia denied that its troops had reached the theater, claiming that a regiment in the Ukrainian army blew it up. Moscow made similar claims – without providing evidence – about the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol that took place about a week earlier.
The southeastern city has been under Russian control since May 2022.