Mariupol air is saturated with smoke. The streets are littered with corpses.
According to the President of Ukraine, there is “nothing left, only ruins.”
The dead remain unburied, left where they fell, in fields shelled by artillery, or in bombed-out residential buildings. Others are still in mangled cars that have turned into coffins.
Many of the victims are covered in rags and blankets, the only dignity the survivors could provide amidst the incessant explosions.
Sitting on one body is a pink rose left behind by a loved one who can’t say goodbye.
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a residential building on fire in northeast Mariupol, Ukraine during the Russian invasion on Saturday, March 19, 2022.
Speaking to the Italian Parliament yesterday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the audience to imagine that Genoa was “completely burned down.” Such is the fate of Mariupol.
Satellite images show the extent of the Russian bombing. The drone footage was released by the Azov battalion defending the city, which has reportedly been downsized to 1,000.
The band’s video shows huge explosions sweeping through the industrial area, one giant explosion after another sending plumes of smoke into the sky.
The remaining inhabitants of the besieged port city were left without food, medicine, electricity and running water. His council yesterday said of Russia: “They want to raze it to the ground and reduce it to the ashes of a dead earth.”
In one residential area, a corpse sits in the passenger seat of a car so thrown by artillery that it cannot be pulled out. Nearby, on the ground, the charred hand of another victim sticks out from under a white sheet.
The couple are among the thousands of civilians said to have been killed in the three-week bombing. Mass graves cannot be dug up quickly enough to contain the death toll.
A man pushes his family and some belongings towards a roadblock guarded by Donetsk People’s Republic forces on a road leading north from a besieged port city on the Azov coast, March 21, 2022.
Some, risking their own lives, arranged mini-burials, covering the bodies with earth and erecting improvised crosses from fragments of wood.
The scary scenes were filmed by Evgeny Maloletka and his Associated Press colleague Mstislav Chernov, the last journalists to leave Mariupol. Many of their photos are too horrible to post.
About 300,000 inhabitants remained in Mariupol, although a quarter of its pre-war population had fled. Another 8,000 people left on Monday, but Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said yesterday it was necessary to help “at least 100,000” more trapped civilians escape.
Those who managed to get out spoke about the horror they left behind. “Three of the children I knew died of dehydration,” said one refugee, 27-year-old Victoria.
“My city is completely destroyed. Me, my family, all our friends, we don’t have a home right now. All buildings are destroyed, shelling continues.
“It burns all the time, except for a few hours at night. People remain in basements, but this does not save them. They bomb so hard they destroy cellars.
A soldier of the Donetsk People’s Republic removes the emblem of the Ukrainian national color on an administrative building in the village of Nokolskoye near Mariupol, which recently switched from Ukrainian to pro-Russian administration.
Pictured: An image released by AZOV Ukraine on Monday, March 21, 2022, allegedly showing massive Russian bombing of Mariupol’s infrastructure.
Nikolai Trofimenko, who fled with his wife and three-year-old son, saw one doctor perform surgery with a kitchen knife and no anesthesia after artillery destroyed the hospital where he worked.
“The city is gone now,” Trofimenko said.
“If you don’t get killed by shelling, you will die of starvation,” added Olga Nikitina, another refugee. “Fights went for every street. Every house has become a target.”
Others have reported a new reign of terror as Putin’s forces spread throughout the city in an attempt to destroy any sign that he is still Ukrainian.
Andrei Marusov recalled one heartbreaking meeting. “The Russian military police came and told the soldier who was with me, ‘let’s shoot him – we have already shot two civilians.
“The gun was looking at my chest and I thought it would be better if he shot me in the heart and not in other parts, just so as not to suffer.” Mr. Marusov was released and allowed to leave, leaving his 80-year-old parents behind.
Despite all the bombs and bloodshed, Mariupol has not yet fallen. On Monday, Moscow set a 5 a.m. deadline for surrender, warning residents that they would face a “humanitarian catastrophe” if they did not raise the white flag.
The threats failed to break the city’s resolve: Piotr Andryushenko, the mayor’s adviser, declared that his men would fight “to the last man.”
The British Ministry of Defense said yesterday: “Despite fierce fighting, Ukrainian forces continue to repel Russian attempts to occupy the southern city of Mariupol.”