Credit, Portal
Item Information
- Author, Sarah Fowler and James Landale
- Scroll, from BBC News in London and Kiev (Ukraine)
- Mar 19, 2023, 5:17 p.m. 03
Updated 2 hours ago
Driving through the heavily attacked city at night, Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Mariupol devastated when Russian troops surrounded the city early in the war.
The BBC traced part of his route, which passed near several locations where his army’s notorious attacks had been taking place for months. Russia captured the city last May.
Videos released by Russian media show Putin talking to a companion on the way to the city’s auditorium. The Kremlin announced that the visit took place on Saturday and that the Russian President “spontaneously” decided to take a tour of the city.
Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, who is in exile, told the BBC that the city was “personal” to Putin because of events there.
“We have to understand that Mariupol is a symbolic place for Putin because of the anger he inflicted on the city of Mariupol. No other city was destroyed like this one. No other city was besieged for so long. No other city has been subjected to so many bombing raids,” he said.
“He came in person to see what he was doing,” he added.
Drive through the Russian attack scenery
Credit, Portal
caption,
Putin at a residence in Mariupol
The BBC has identified some of the sights along the Russian guide’s route. Putin appears to be driving along Kuprina Street, turning onto Mir Prospekt Avenue, and then onto Metalurhiv Avenue, where the Philharmonic Hall is located, which the pictures show he later visited.
He is sitting next to a man in a black cap whom Russian media identify as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin.
To their left, as they drive along Mir Prospect, are bird sculptures on Mariupol’s Freedom Square.
Farther to the right and not visible in the pictures is Mariupol’s Maternity Hospital No. 3, which was bombed in a massive attack in March last year.
Photos of Mariana Vishegirskaya, nine months pregnant walking down a debrisstrewn staircase with her face bloodied, were widely circulated amid outrage over the attack. She survived and gave birth the next day. Another pregnant woman was among the victims of the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a war crime, but the Russian embassy in London said the hospital is no longer in use and is being used by members of the Azov Battalion the farright nationalist paramilitary group in Ukraine, which was founded in 2014 and who was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine.
Visiting Mariupol, Putin turned onto Mir Prospect just before the road reached Theater Square the scene of a deadly bombing that is estimated to have killed at least 300 and possibly as many as 600 civilians.
Civilians used the building as a place of refuge from the siege, and a large sign with the word “Children” in Russian had been painted on the front of the theater. The building collapsed when hit. A later investigation by the Associated Press news agency found that up to 600 people had died. Russia denied bombing the theater, blaming the Azov Battalion. In December, officials in the Ukrainian city of exile said Russia would demolish the ruins of the theater.
Russia “understood where there was a concentration of people and deliberately destroyed those places and killed people. They worked on it systematically,” Boychenko said.
Credit, Portal
caption,
Putin was filmed looking at maps near residential buildings
Russian building in Mariupol
Footage from Putin’s visit shows the Russian president touring a new housing complex said to be in Mariupol’s Nevsky district.
He is guided by Khusnulli who shows him some reconstruction plans. He is also seen talking to people who Russian media say are locals and visits an apartment he is told consists of three bedrooms.
Nevsky is a new neighborhood consisting of a dozen blocks of flats west of the city. It is named after the Neva River, on which lies St. Petersburg, the hometown of President Putin.
Mayor Boychenko said many of the buildings built by the Russians are on the outskirts of the city.
“They just built this to prove their version of what’s happening there is true. But they lie! They lie that they came to liberate the city. You destroyed her. This city no longer exists. And it will take 20 years to restore it!” he said.
Mariupol residents told the BBC that new buildings were being built and some of those damaged by the Russian army were being demolished. The UN estimates that 90% of residential buildings were damaged or destroyed in the Russian attack.
Norwegian journalist Morten Risberg, who visited Mariupol in December, said he saw “largescale reconstruction and restoration” amid “destruction everywhere you looked”.
“They change street names, paint Russian colors over Ukrainian colors and put Russian flags everywhere,” he told the BBC. Most of the remaining civilians in the city are “just focused on surviving,” he said.
Walk through the Philharmonic Hall
Credit, Getty Images
caption,
The concert hall was supposed to be the site for trials of Ukrainian prisoners of war, but they were traded in a prisoner exchange
Elsewhere in the footage, President Putin can be seen walking through the interior of a concert hall in Mariupol. Russian state media said it was the Philharmonic concert hall and the BBC has confirmed the images match the inside of the venue.
This is the same building that the United Nations warned would be tried against Ukrainian troops who resisted Russian forces for months at the huge Azovstal iron and steel plant in Mariupol. Russia finally gained full control of Mariupol in May after the defenders surrendered.
Footage posted to social media last August including by Ukrainian officials appeared to show metal cages being constructed on the stage. According to the UN, the prosecution of prisoners of war (POWs) for taking part in hostilities is a war crime.
But the trials never took place as the POWs were later part of a prisoner exchange for 55 prisoners from Ukraine, including former proKremlin MP Viktor Medvedchuk.
The latest pictures from inside the concert hall show that the cages have been removed and the interior of the building has undergone a new decoration.
During the siege, the concert hall and the theater were used by civilians as a shelter. Cultural institutions are “where people hid in basements and waited for the end of Russian terror,” said Boychenko.
Before the invasion, it was the site of the Mariupol Classic Classical Music Festival. According to Boychenko, the festival was a “big celebration of classical music for the people of Mariupol,” attracting performers from abroad and from other parts of Ukraine.
“Many people have always gathered for this festival to feel the mood that has always been in Mariupol,” he said.
In an afterimage, President Putin can be seen visiting a World War II memorial called the Liberation Memorial.
With additional information from reporter Benedict Garman.