A grenade and a destroyed BTR armored vehicle, probably belonging to the Azov Battalion, lie next to a destroyed residential complex. March 23, 2022 Maximilian Clarke/Keystone Press Agency / www.globallookpress.com
Mariupol is or was a city of 400,000, and a major port and steel producer, about half-Russian and half-Ukrainian.
Mariupol survivors report: “Azov militants are to blame for 85 percent of the destruction”
25 mar 2022 10:38 am
[Source: translated by JdN from https://de.rt.com/europa/134504-ueberlebende-aus-mariupol-reports-to-85-percent-of-the-destruction-asow-guilt/ ]
People rescued from the embattled cities of the Donbass report on their experiences. The situation in Mariupol is particularly bad: residents blame the city government and nationalists [Azov Battalion and the “Right Sector”] in the Ukrainian army for the misery, death and destruction.
Source: www.globallookpress.com © Maximilian Clark / Keystone Agency
Destruction in the city of Mariupol
Exactly a month ago, on February 24, the Russian military operation in Ukraine began. Officially, it is called a “special operation to demilitarize and denazify and protect the Donbass republics.”
The operation involved a large-scale invasion of regions bordering Russia, devastating blows to the Ukrainian army, and an attempt to encircle large groups of Ukrainian forces in the Donbass region.
The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which had been recognized by Russia a few days earlier, announced that it intends to reconquer its territory to conform with the borders set out in its local constitution. Since the first Donbass war in 2014, the port city of Mariupol, the second largest in the DPR, has been under Ukrainian control, which has always been seen as a great loss in Donetsk. Many fighters from Mariupol serve in the ranks of the Donetsk People’s Militia.
However, it was clear that recapturing the city would be a difficult undertaking. According to plans by the [pro-NATO] Maidan forces, Mariupol, which was known for its anti-fascist demos, was meant to become a nationalist stronghold. The notorious association of militant Ukrainian nationalists called “Azov” and other similar groups nested here. There was no question of laying down their arms, which Russia had repeatedly demanded from them. In addition, since the beginning of the military operation, Ukrainian war propaganda has cultivated the myth of Ukraine’s imminent victory, which was intended also to strengthen the Azov fighters’ courage to fight on.
The lives of the more than 400,000 peaceful residents were in immediate danger. By March 1, more than 100,000 of them left the city on their own, according to Ukrainian media. The refugees later reported that there was no organized evacuation. At the beginning of March, the city’s water, electricity and gas supply collapsed. City authorities blamed it on Russian saboteurs.
Since March 7 at the latest, Mariupol has been encircled by the forces of the People’s Militia and the Russian army. Since March 1, the People’s Republic of Donetsk and Russia have been offering humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of the population, but made it clear even then that the routes were extremely endangered by provocations and attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces.
“They are not threatened by anything, but in the current situation, in which units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian National Guard (the “Azov” fighters are integrated into the National Guard – editor’s note), serving under the leadership of the Ukrainian special services, are carrying out terrorist attacks and preparing provocations so as to discredit the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the eyes of the world public, and so many of the [locals] fear for their lives.”
With these words, the government of the Donetsk People’s Republic addressed the people of Mariupol. But the message could not reach the people. As later reported by evacuatees, the [Ukrainian] city authorities did nothing to assist in the evacuation. As the artillery battles approached the city, people took refuge in the unsafe cellars. There was no food or water three, so people distributed food and medicine among themselves from looted groceries and pharmacies.
According to Mariupol authorities, it is Russia that is responsible for all the demolitions in the city. 80 to 90 percent of the city had been bombed or damaged by airstrikes, and at least 2,358 people had died (as of March 13), the city’s deputy mayor, Sergei Orlov, said in a Forbes interview on March 16. The dead were being buried in cemeteries or in the yards of their neighbors. He accused Russia of waging war against the civilian population.
On March 24, the joint forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia claimed control of up to two-thirds of the city’s territory, including the only remaining city hospital. Up to 100,000 people had already been evacuated from the city to either Russia or the People’s Republic of Donetsk.
Now, dozens of videos are surfacing on the Internet with consistent narratives – how the people are angry and disturbed, blaming the city authorities, the Ukrainian army, and especially the Azov militants, for the wave of misery and death.
These Azov soldiers,they said, drove people out of their homes and took up firing positions, and tanks fired from densely built-up residential areas and thus provoked [the Russians’] return fire. Some reported that Ukrainian tanks fired on the stairwells of multi-story buildings, causing the houses to burn to the ground. There were similar reports from other liberated cities in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, such as Volnowacha or Rubeshnoye. People trying to flee the city were shot at.
“We have the fascist Azov, and the Right Sector there (in the city). They have committed such outrages. A child and its mother, who had also another two-year-old child, were killed in our garden. We have a complete cut-off in our building — there is no electricity, no gas and no water,” a woman said in a video published by the Russian newspaper Izvestia on March 16.
She is holding a child in her arms; other evacuees can be seen in the background. According to her, Ukrainian forces shot at cars with refugees trying to leave Mariupol.
“We were fired upon by the Ukrainian army, Ukraine bombed us. And the mayor of the city ordered us to build Molotov cocktails and throw them at the Russian soldiers!” the refugees said.
Similar reports were shared by other Mariupol residents who were interviewed by an RT correspondent on March 23 at the refugee camp in Volodarskoye, Donetsk People’s Republic. The context is a conversation with several evacuees in front of a children’s playground and then a young woman speaks up:
“We lived in this Ukraine and some said to believe in this state. I want to extend a warm greeting [sarcasm] to the Mayor of Mariupol, who has not allowed a single bomb alarm to be sounded, who has not allowed a single bomb shelter to be built in the eight years of this [Donbass] war [since 2014]. Our basements have been pulverized.
“He has abandoned our city. He left us without food for a month now, without water, without gas and electricity, and without baby food. We haven’t seen a piece of bread all month. And this villain just took off. Please spread this fact across the country: he has betrayed the people.”
Maximilian Clarke/Keystone Press Agency / www.globallookpress.com
“This is how the evacuation works here: All evacuees from Mariupol will be brought to this place.” She points to the collective accommodation – living containers, communal kitchen, etc.
“People are being rescued from the cellars by Russian soldiers.”
“They help us,” says a man next to her, and next to him is a child, presumably the woman’s daughter.
“Yes, they are helping, you understand?”
“They carry out children out in their arms,” said the man.
“They carry our children out in their arms, do you understand? They hand over their own [soldier] rations,” the woman continues.
“And the Ukrainian army just shoots at small children. We saw that with our own eyes. You have to show that to the whole world!”
“Ukraine is not the only country that says how it is so beautiful. But it was the Russian forces that went and evacuated all the people here. Not a single Ukrainian soldier ever rescued us from a basement.”
“They didn’t allow that because they were using us as human shields,” says another female voice.
“I don’t know much about politics,” the woman continues. “I am not a soldier. But what I’ve seen with my own eyes is this: If they’re defending the city, they should do it at the outer edge of the city [making a big circle with her arms]. If you can’t hold the [enemy back], throw away your guns, leave it, and walk away.”
At this point she raises her voice. “But they’ve started hiding in our apartment buildings, in our schools and kindergartens!” Several women agree:
“Only peaceful civilians were in there.”
“And those [Azov types] who were captured by Russian forces said ‘we’re not getting out of here alive anyway; so we’re going to hide behind [a wall of] living flesh.”
She points to the people around her: “[These people are the] Llving flesh that has survived.” “That’s us,” says a woman off-screen. The woman concludes:
“Spread this around the world how Ukraine has behaved!”
The middle-aged man standing next to the woman also has a story to tell. According to him, the Ukrainian army consistently shelled his entire neighborhood with mortars,
…and houses that caught fire as a result of the shelling were not extinguished by the fire brigade, “although the fire station was 100 meters away”.
Several five-story houses next to each other burned down.
“85 percent of the destruction in the city was caused by the Ukrainian army. They have destroyed the infrastructure of our city. I don’t know where this order to do this came from.” He refers to a conversation with a Russian military man. According to him, the Russian army is there “only has to suppress the enemy’s heavy artillery fire.”
Except for the exact number, his estimates agree with the statements of another evacuee from Mariupol, who was interviewed by the Russian TV channel Russia-1 a few days earlier in Russia’s Crimea .
“We were like cannon fodder. They [the Azov fighters] fired back from the courtyards with tanks and machine guns. I can safely say that Azov caused 85 percent of the damage to the city.”
Maximilian Clarke/Keystone Press Agency / www.globallookpress.com
Not only major Russian TV channels are reporting such stories these days. Videos are appearing on a mass of Telegram channels run by volunteers, people’s militia and other volunteers. So , on March 22, the “Donbass to Tape” channel published a conversation with passers-by leaving the city on foot.
“There is shooting and bombing. More than 100 people, including small children, are sitting in the basement. There is no water. You drink the water from a city pool,” says an elderly woman and cries. She looks exhausted. Her belongings fit in a roller bag. “The water is dirty — black!”
“Why didn’t the Ukrainian soldiers let you get out?” asks the film journalist, apparently a representative of the people’s militia.
“They hide behind the peaceful population,” say the woman and her two male companions.
“Tell me where they are, the address?”
“They were on Soya Kosmodemyanskaya Street. But now they’ve gone from there.”
“Please give the address where the children are located.”
“Moskovskaya 64A. In the basement of a ten-story house that’s still intact.”
“How many children are there?”
There are 20. There are also sick and old people who need medical care. The man tells about the death of a girl who was buried the previous day.
Another video shows a man lying on the ground who was shot dead by a Ukrainian sniper a few minutes earlier. A group of journalists is said to have been shot at.
A car passenger says that when the Azov militants left the Mangush district, they destroyed all the blocks of flats using Grad multiple rocket launchers.
A school was also taken under fire. A friend of hers and her daughter died. The video was posted by the Vesti Krim channel on March 20.
On March 22, the “Tribunal” channel posted a video by @smotri_media with the statements of car passengers who were questioned at passport control when leaving the city.
“Azov doesn’t let the people out. They shot at two buses. There were childre in there. People screamed: ‘What are you doing, there are children in there!’
They say that “in war there are no children and old people,” says a man.
A young woman in the back seat adds: “They hide in our schools and kindergartens. From there they shoot, and then they run away. Yes, and they steal our cars and car batteries.”
Another motorist reports: “If only they had let the people leave the city. No, they didn’t do that, these bastards! So far they are hiding behind the local residents. Do you think we’re glad for what they’ve done here since 2014? It was just lawlessness.”
House-to-house fighting as civilians huddle in stairwells (video)
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