Minister Dmytro Kouleba that the building was now completely destroyed, and included a purported photo of the theater. Russians would not have known that this shelter was civilian.
on Telegram, the Mariupol city council stated that Russia “purposefully destroyed” the Drama Theatre where hundreds are hiding. According to the council, a plane dropped bombs on the building, destroying its “central part” and the “entrance into the bomb shelter.”
Telegram: “It’s still impossible to assess the scale of this horrible and inhumane act,” said the city council.
Social media users posted other images as well as videos that purportedly showed the aftermath of the strike.
Russia denies that it targeted civilians. According to RIA news agency, the Russian defense ministry denied that its forces had attacked the building.
Mariupol, a south-facing seaport with 430,000 inhabitants, has been a symbol for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive against democratic Ukraine. However, it also represents a fierce resistance from the ground.
Two Associated Press journalists, who have documented the city’s descent into chaos and despair over the past three weeks, have been the only international media present at Mariupol since the beginning of Russia’s war. Russian soldiers are now slowly taking the city’s life, one at a time, and have encircled it.
Numerous appeals for humanitarian corridors were ignored. On Wednesday, Ukrainian officials announced that approximately 30,000 people fled in convoys. The maternity hospital, fire department, homes and a church were all hit by shells and airstrikes. There is nowhere for the hundreds of thousands of people who are still here.
The port is blocked and surrounding roads are being mined. Russians have stopped humanitarian efforts to import food. Residents are melting snow for water, and electricity is almost gone. Parents have left their newborns in hospital to try and give them a better chance of surviving in the only place that has decent electricity or water.
To warm themselves in the cold, people use scraps of furniture to make charcoal grills and to cook whatever food is left. The only thing that is in abundance in these grills are bricks and metal shards left behind from the destruction of buildings.
There is death everywhere. Officials have reported more than 2,500 deaths during the siege. However, many bodies are not countable due to the constant shelling. Because it is too dangerous to hold funerals, they have instructed families to move their dead to the streets.
Many of the victims of the AP’s investigation were children and mothers. This is despite Russia’s claim that civilians have not been attacked. Doctors claim that they treat 10 civilians per injured Ukrainian soldier.
On March 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zilenskyy stated that “they have a clear command to hold Mariupol captive, to mock it and to continually bomb and shell it.”