Mariupol government / Telegram
- Photos show how Russian troops are stripping Ukrainian life out of Mariupol.
- Video posted to Telegram Friday shows Russians destroying a theater in the captured city.
- Last Christmas, Mariupol was booming and decorated in lights for the holiday season.
Photos show how Russia is destroying Ukrainian life in one of the only major cities it has captured during its months-long invasion of the Eastern European country.
A video posted to Telegram Friday showed Russians tearing down a ruined theater in Mariupol with a bulldozer.
Russian army destroys Mariupol theater in December 2022
Telegram
Last December, Mariupol was booming, covered in Christmas decorations, with the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre a central point of the city. In the year since, Russians have been sucking Ukrainian life out of Mariupol.
Christmas celebrations in Mariupol in December 2021.
Mariupol government
The video on Telegram recounts a “full history of the tragedy of the Drama Theater of Mariupol,” the post said. It first shows the March bombing, in which an investigation from the Associated Press earlier this year found that up to 600 people were killed.
The video then shows the burial of civilians in mass graves later in Spring, and, finally, the “final demolition of parts of the building, which are direct evidence of the war crime of the Russian army,” in December, the Telegram post said.
“All in one video. For us to remember. Not to forget. Not to forgive. To pay back all the guilty ones – those who bombed, those who falsified evidence, those who hid the crime,” the Telegram post said.
Mariupol Drama Theater on April 16, 2022.
Maximilian Clarke/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Petro Andryushchenko, an aide of Mariupol’s exiled mayor, told the BBC he believes the Russians are trying to cover up the murder of hundreds of civilians in the city. The same building was bombed by Russians in March and was already partially destroyed.
Andryushchenko added that he believes that the Russians want to keep the front part of the theater as is, but will destroy the remainder to build a new theater “on the bones of Mariupol’s people,” the BBC reported.
For Ukrainians still in Mariupol, the Russian army promised alternative entertainment in place of the beloved theater.
The BBC reported that to fulfill their promise, performances of 1960s Soviet Union cult music are taking place at Pioneers’ Palace.
