The city council of Mariupol, Ukraine, said on Saturday that thousands of the city’s residents had been forcibly taken into Russia, with the mayor likening their removal to actions performed by the Nazis during World War II, CNN reported.
Mariupol, which sits in the southeastern region of Ukraine, has been the site of constant attacks by Russian forces, who city officials say killed several thousand residents in one day alone last week. The city has seen a mosque, a children’s hospital and a theater bombed, among other buildings.
“Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory,” the city council said in a statement, according to CNN. “The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing.”
Hand with manicure. The story of the victim of the Russian Horde from Bucha.
You have all seen the horrifying photos from Bucha. The woman with the red manicure on one of them is Irina. Back on February 23, she was a client of the make-up artist Anastasia, who recognized her by her manicure. Here’s what the girl remembers about her
“I immediately felt that this photo hurt me and could not understand why. Irina went to me for makeup lessons for herself. The last one was the day before the war… – Anastasia shares.
Irina was jumping for joy, because for the first time in her life she had her own cosmetics, which we bought with her. Every time at work she sat and practiced our lessons as diligently as anyone. And when she came again, she told how her makeup was appreciated by new fans and how great she feels now.
She just wanted to live. How many more of my acquaintances, clients, Buchans must die for the world to come to its senses and punish Russia?”
Now russians are forcefully deporting Mariupol citizens to russia and take away their passports. Right now new concentration camps are being created in russia for ukrainians. This is horrifying, please do not stay silent, spread this information!
Still processing my last night’s conversation with my old university friend who had spent about three weeks in a village under russian occupation.
Her stories are just…
The way the russians routinely walked the streets in the evenings, shooting at houses and everything they could hit, so my friend and her family would just spend hours lying on the floor in the corridor with knives in their hands (“just in case some russians entered the house and we could try to take them with us”), and days unable to go outside, with no running water and dwindling food supplies.
The way, when russians were retreating, they set their slightly damaged rocket launching system on fire, and the missiles went flying everywhere in the surrounding area. Including the house my friend was in. They got incredibly lucky that it didn’t explode.
And in addition, a story about two of her close friends who were driving humanitarian aid by car, and russians shot at their car FROM A TANK.
Russian army is a terrorist gang. Russia is a terrorist state. A disgrace to itself.
A recent terrifying video from Mariupol, it was filmed by Ruzzians (Kadyrovites)
This Chechen occupier tells that they were bombed by their own (russian) forces and miraculously survived. He seems to be very amused by this situation.
But on the background you can hear a woman crying and screaming “Natasha! Natasha!”, then a gunshot, silence and “oh God” in the end. We can only guess what was happening to Natasha and the other woman…
Testimonial of a Bucha survivor - my translation below. Apologies for bad English.
He was given 20 minutes to collect the body parts of his friend and bury them.
This is Mykola. He is 53. He lives in Bucha. Mykola stutters a lot. Only after lighting a cigarette does he begin his story.
Mykola has been staying in the basement for 34 days. He could have left the city, but being the apartment complex manager of a five-story building, he couldn’t leave other people. On the first day of the fighting in Bucha, a shell flew into the window of his flat, pierced the wall, and got stuck into a child’s bed, setting it on fire. Thankfully, his family had already evacuated by then. After extinguishing the fire, he gathered all the elderly and the women and moved to the basement.
When russians occupied the town, they were breaking into every house. All the men were led outside and stripped naked - they were looking for tattoos (“nazi” tattoos - they believe that all Azov soldiers are marked with them and are hiding among civilians). Two of Mykola’s friends, Leonid and Sergiy, were under 50 years old, and one more man, also called Leonid, was much younger. When russian soldiers saw his birth date on his passport, they said he is eligible for joining the army and executed him.
Mykola buried Leonid right there, in the yard, near the transformer box. A bloodstain remains on the place where he was killed.
A few days later, Sergiy also was killed. He stepped outside the basement to smoke a cigarette and was shot on spot. Just like that, without any words or warnings.
When the fight got intense, the russians went mad. Before that, people could leave the basements to cook some food outside or just get a breath of fresh air. At this point, the people decided to lock themselves inside. When evening came, russians started shooting everywhere. They yelled and demanded the people let them in the basement. Most likely, they planned on executing everyone before leaving the city. We know that to be true because this happened to a different house on a neighboring street.
When russians didn’t manage to break the door, they threw a grenade on the stairway. On the other side of it, Leonid - the only man beside Mykola who stayed alive - was holding the door. The people inside heard the explosion, and then silence. For a full day, his dead body was lying there, on the blood-stained stairway. On the next day, russians knocked on the door and said that (the people) had 20 minutes to bury the man. When Mykola stepped outside, he saw the head and legs of his friend, torn apart from his body.
Mykola gathered the remains and dug another grave - the third one. Due to his old age and limited time, he didn’t manage to dig it deep enough. Now he worries that once it starts raining, it will wash off the sand and the stray dogs will come to eat the remains.
Among all this horror, pain, and death it is easy to lose hope. But today Mykola is my hero. He saw the worst that humankind has to offer but didn’t lose his own humanity. During the interview, he was holding back his tears. After we turned off the camera, he started crying and thanked us for listening to him.
The russian occupiers in Mariupol announced the start of registration for compensation for destroyed housing and / or loss of a family member. For housing - 500 thousand rubles (approximately 6 thousand US dollars), for the deceased family member - 3 million rubles (approximately 33 thousand US dollars).
There’s only one tiny “nuance”: when submitting a written statement, Mariupol residents must state that the property was “destroyed by the Ukrainian military” and that relatives were “killed by the Ukrainian army.” In the absence / refusal of such a mark, the occupiers say that no compensation will be provided.
They came to a foreign land, destroyed everything, killed tens of thousands of residents and deported even more, created filtration camps for the survivors…
These photos made me so enraged yesterday that at first I couldn’t bring myself to post them. I almost cried from helplessness against this injustice.
These are photos of Mariupol destroyed by the ruzzians. And the ruzzians placed these photos on the streets of the annexed Crimea with captions like:
“Destroyed house. Civilians are suffering because of the Nazi regime in Ukraine” “The house from which Azov fired at civilians” “Drama theater stage blown up by Ukrainian nationalists”
Yes, you read it right. Ukraine is apparently killing Ukrainians, which only accidentally coincides with russia’s announcement of a “special military operation” in Ukraine. /sarcasm
They had the audacity to bring up the Drama Theater in Mariupol. The same Theater that served as a shelter for approximately a thousand civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly. The same Theater that had “CHILDREN” written on the ground in large letters, so that the ruzzian pilot could see it and maybe not drop bombs on them. The same theater on which the ruzzians dropped heavy air bombs, instantly killing or leaving under the rubble to die a slow painful death at least 600 people. Innocent people. Children.
Let me lay it all out for you. Russia attacked us in 2014 when we were at our weakest and most vulnerable. Russia occupied parts of Donbas and annexed Crimea. Then finally russia attacked all of Ukraine, murdered thousands of Ukrainians, killed about 20 thousand Ukrainians in Mariupol alone. To now show these photos in the annexed Crimea. These photos of a shelter that has become a grave for hundreds of innocent people.
And they captioned it like this: “drama theater blown up by the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the purpose of provocation.”
Is it possible to do anything more evil? I swear this is some “cartoon villain” shit. The level of russian ruthlessness is absolutely insane. It makes me want to leave the planet they live on.
Imagine, you just live your normal life, and then suddenly an enemy comes to your city, sets up checkpoints everywhere, armed men can be seen patroling every corner of every street. Tanks and armored personnel carriers with enemy symbols drive through the streets. Usually in the occupied territories they hang russian flags and other symbols all around, so that you never even for a second could forget where you are and that you are surrounded by enemies. In this way they psychologically suppress you. You are in constant fear, waiting for them to realize that you are not on their side and punish you for it. No laws apply anymore. Any of these armed men can do absolutely anything to you, and not incur any punishment or consequences for it. In an instant, you lose all civil rights you used to have.
And this is if you are just a “regular” person, but if you or any of your family members served in the Ukrainian military, or if you are an activist of some kind, maybe a Ukrainian artist, or a journalist, or a city manager, etc., you will either be killed, tortured or imprisoned. These are the realities of russian occupation.
After a major failure in holding a fake “referendum” in Kherson, the Russian Gauleiter declares that they will simply “appeal to Russia with a request to accept the Kherson region of Ukraine into Russia.” Because “Kherson is a Russian city anyway.”
Yes, while we all live in the 21st century, Russia is in the Middle Ages, where you can simply come with your troops to another sovereign country and call it your own territory. While looting, killing, raping and torturing innocent people.
Russia has not changed a bit since the times of the Horde. The country of savages proud of their barbarism.
“Special for May 8. Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. Our Mariupol’s mini-project "I am a Russian. I’m a Killer. ” Part one - I’m a Russian tankman.“
I haven’t written as much about Mariupol lately because honestly? I can’t talk or write about it without crying and feeling completely broken. But the defenders of Mariupol don’t give up, and the least I can do is continue to talk about them, even in such a small and insignificant platform like this blog.
Almost four weeks ago, the occupiers forcibly removed all men from the Guglino, Myrnyi, and Volonterivka districts. About two thousand people were placed in the Bezimenne and Kozatske villages in the buildings of school and club. They are forced to sleep on the floor, they live in unsanitary conditions with one sink with cold water per thousand people. The first cases of tuberculosis have already been recorded there. The number of people is checked twice a day, the russians threaten to worsen the tortures if someone is missing.
All people, including the sick and people with disabilities are involved in landscaping work in the village Bezymyane and Novoazovsk under the escort of the russian military. As for the future, the occupiers emphasize that they have not yet decided whether to use people for free labor to dismantle the debris of Mariupol or to conscript men into the russian army.
Civilian men are threatened with being forced to attend a parade in Mariupol on May 9 pretending to be the “prisoners of war”. The russians had once held such a parade in occupied Donetsk, forcing prisoners of war and detained civilians to march down the main street while the crowd threw garbage at them.
They probably want to do something similar in Mariupol, which is why now they are actively dismantling the wreckage of the main streets of Mariupol (mostly by civilians who are forced to do this), because they are going to hold a “victory parade” on russia’s “victory day” on May 9. So the streets have to look good for their tv propaganda.
Although now because these plans have been made public by Ukraine, Russia backs down on this and claims that this isn’t going to happen. That’s why it is so important to uncover and make as public as possible all their criminal plans so they can’t go through with it.
Recently, they changed the sign with the name of the city from Ukrainian to Russian language, and broadcasted it on all propaganda platforms. Thisis their main goal, always was, to destroy everything and everyone Ukrainian.
That’s what they always do in the first place - they erase everything Ukrainian in the most demonstrative way. Again, that’s what they did in Donetsk many years ago as soon as they seized it. They removed the letter ь that is present in Ukrainian name of Donetsk but not in Russian. (but this word is pronounced quite differently in two languages, although it is spelled similarly)
But do you know what this sign looks like now, after 8 years of russian occupation?
Russia brings with it only destruction, decay, poverty and suffering.
Now all civilians from Azovstal have been evacuated, but not thanks to the good will of the russians. Ukrainian defenders and volunteers helped people evacuate under constant shelling.
Not only Azov fighters are now blocked in Azovstal, but also soldiers from Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhia, marines, doctors and territorial defense fighters. Men from all over Ukraine, of different religions and ethnicities (Ukrainians, Georgians, Jews, Crimean Tatars and people with Turkish roots). They could all escape when the war had just begun, but they did not give up. Each of them is a true Ukrainian hero, and the whole country is devastated that we can’t get them out of there.
I can’t explain it to you well enough… I, like many other Ukrainians, follow these guys’ social networks. I can tell you with confidence that they are the nicest people there are. They go through hell every day…no one of us can imagine it. And yet they somehow retain their humanity, it is simply incredible.
These are the most heartbreaking events that are unfolding right before our eyes, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So many unjust sufferings.
This girl, a military doctor in Mariupol who recorded a video saying “we don’t want to be heroes posthumously” died. I remember watching this video in the first month of war and crying my eyes out. She was killed a while ago but I never posted about it because I cry every time I see her face. She has a little son who now lost both of his parents. Nobody saved them.
Now more than fifty wounded are in Azovstal, they are in unsanitary conditions. The russians bombed the only surgery room.
And when I go to twitter and other platforms and see all the disgusting russian lies… How they are able to twist and turn everything upside down, call the sky green and white black… I beg you, trust only Ukrainians on this topic (and only those Ukrainians who are not currently on the russian-controlled territory and are not being tortured, obviously). There’s so much more I want to say but I am bad at phrasing it.
At first I wanted to attach photos of the destructions to this text, but it’s just piles of stones, walls that can be rebuilt. So many lives cannot be revived. Look into their faces - they, like thousands of others, were killed by russia.
Some were buried alive under the rubble that used to be their homes, and their relatives or neighbors are unable to dismantle the blockages with their bare hands and retrieve the bodies.
Like this woman who is buried under the rubble of her house. The note says: “Here lies Zolotareva Valentina.”
This is the 21st century, a peaceful country and innocent people.
Please don’t forget what russia is doing to my country, even if it doesn’t change anything and nothing matters…
I feel like in order to understand what is going on we need to see pictures of the war. We can read the words and think we understand, that we can imagine it but we can’t. So here’s few pictures from the past few days, nothing too graphic.
A man walks with a bicycle next to a truck that carries black bags with corpses of people killed during the war with Russia and exhumed from a mass grave for investigations in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Writing covers a wall and a door in the basement of a school in Yahidne, near Chernihiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Residents say more than 300 people were trapped for weeks by Russian occupiers in the basement of the school in Yahidne. They wrote the names of people who died during the Russian occupation of their village. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A boy shows the shell of a bullet in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A man with a bicycle walks in front of a destroyed apartment building in the town of Borodyanka, Ukraine, on Saturday, April 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Graves of local residents who died during the fighting with Russia are seen in a street behind private houses in an area that Russian-backed separatists claim to control in the Ukraine city of Mariupol, Wednesday, April 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)
Cars drive near a damaged bridge following a Russian attack in the previous weeks in the town of Makarov, Kyiv region, Ukraine, on Sunday, April 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
A Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) serviceman plays with a cat during an operation to arrest suspected Russian collaborators in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
People walk down a street near past a building damaged by shelling in Irpin, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A cemetery worker takes a rest from working on the graves of civilians killed in Bucha during the war with Russia, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Residents stand outside their apartments as shops burn after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Seeing comments from some russians who claim to be so good and against war and against putin, but are so scared because they might get FINED or detailed for a couple of days for attending a protest, so they’re not going to do shit and will complain about the mean Ukrainians who refuse to all die quietly for their comfort… makes me think of the ending of Schindler’s List.
That iconic scene when Schindler breaks down crying and apologising surrounded by all the people he helped to survive, because he thinks he didn’t do enough. He says that he could have saved more, so many more people, and that’s what he feels guilty for - for not doing enough. Despite objectively having done quite a lot.
And then I see these russians WHO DO NOTHING AT ALL complaining.
You are ALL responsible. And you will never wash this blood and this shame off your hands. Not for generations to come. Not that you have ever tried to wash it away - you were proud of it. Of your atrocities in Chechnia, in Georgia, in Ukraine and Syria.
You will not be forgiven, though you’re not even apologising.
For me, it was not even a shock. Because, professionally, I have been following and dealing with so many Russia-related issues. And I’ve been working for the government of Ukraine since 1993.
It was only logical what happened that night because the whole sequence of events for the last 30 years was leading to the point where Russia, in their mindset, came to the conclusion that whatever they do, you guys would not really be able to stop them.
You’ve always been closing your eyes on everything. They occupy (Transnistria) of Moldova. You close your eyes. They invade Georgia. You close your eyes. They bomb Syria. You close your eyes. They do ugly things in Central African Republic and in Mali. You close your eyes. They help North Korea. They help other rogue governments. You close your eyes.
And now you are surprised.
Putin has been in power for 20-plus years. It’s all our guilt.
Some governments were complacent because they had commercial interests. Some governments were complacent because they believe that they are so far away that whatever happens would not impact them.
Remember Bucha? Well, right now the same thing is happening in Kherson region. More stories about killed, tortured and raped children. There’s also Mariupol - it’s like Bucha, but 20 times worse. And people still buy russian gas
Phosphorous bombings of inhabited regions of Donbass. Indiscriminate targeting of civillians is considered a war crime under the Geneva convention. Video by the Ukrainian National Guard Unit.
