Mariupol Mayor Calls for Total Evacuation of City – Vadym Boychenko, the Mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, said on Monday that the city was completely destroyed, that thousands have died, and roughly 90% of the city’s residential buildings have been destroyed by Russian bombs in the last four weeks.
Boychenko urged all remaining residents in the city to leave, but also called for the opening of humanitarian corridors in the region to allow desperate residents to leave.
“Mariupol needs a complete evacuation,” Boychenko told the UNIAN news agency.
Boychenko also warned that as many as 30,000 Mariupol residents were forced to use humanitarian corridors that led them to Russian-controlled territories.
Some 140,000 residents managed to flee Mariupol before the Russians took control of the city, and an additional 150,000 have left since then. Those left behind, Boychenko said, are “beyond the line of humanitarian catastrophe.”
Speaking to Reuters, refugees fleeing the city described how children and infants were left starving and pregnant women delivered babies in basements as the hospitals were either unsafe to use or completely destroyed.
“I also found out today that my son’s classmate’s parents were torn apart right in the yard before his eyes,” one resident told Reuters.
Among the 5,000 deaths reported by Boychenko, 210 were children.
Russia Denies Responsibility
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied responsibility for the damage done to residential and hospital buildings in Mariupol, insisting that Russian troops are only targeting military sites in the region.
Speaking to PBS on Monday, Peskov insisted that troops are following strict orders from the Russian government not to target civilians.
“You have to know that, from the very beginning of these special operations, Russian military had a very strict order from the chief commander not to aim at civilian targets,” he said. “And they are not doing that.
Peskov laid the blame for the destruction in Mariupol at the feet of the Azov Battalion, a volunteer militia with fewer than 1500 members that was formed in May 2014. The anti-Russian Ukrainian batallion espouses white nationalist and neo-Nazi ideas, though the group’s political views are not endorsed by the Ukrainian government in anyway.
“Then who is ruining the infrastructure, the civil infrastructure of Mariupol, for example? Those Nazi battalions inside Mariupol, they’re simply killing those who would like to escape from the city,” Peskov claimed.
“The Russian Federation is playing with us. We are in the hands of the invaders,” Boychenko said this week.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
Alex
March 29, 2022 at 2:45 pm
90% of houses in Mariupol destroyed? What are you smoking, author? Do you know where the majority of Mariupol fled to? To Russia! You were so proud that Russia could not capture Mariupol, and now this is an empty victory for Putin? Yes, this is not a victory for Putin, but for the people’s militia of Donbass, which is supported by Russia. Who exactly was killed in Mariupol? And we know who – the Bandera Nazis, for whom you shed crocodile tears.
James
March 30, 2022 at 7:48 am
Smoking? We are smoking on your dead russian commrades. Escaped to russia? More like russia kidnapping civilians. Imagine living in a world where russian people are considered trash… imagine being a russian and getting in a car accident and knowing no one would help you. If i saw you on fire i wouldnt waste my piss on you to put you out ?????
James
March 30, 2022 at 11:46 am
Alex – I hope the Kremlin is paying you in dollars or euros. If in rubles, good luck buying anything!
Alex
March 30, 2022 at 11:51 am
I don’t know who let the Bandera Nazi on the site, but I definitely like how his ass is on fire. And here is what real American journalists write:
To know the real information about the battles in Ukraine, without false propaganda, I advise you to read the articles of the American journalist Scott Ritter. He tells truthfully about how Russian troops clear the cities, how the Bandera Nazis retreat, talks about the real losses of the parties.
To know the real information about the atrocities, torture of Bandera Nazis, I advise you to read Gonzalo Lear.
Note that the American Gonzalo Lira lives and works in Ukraine. Now he is in besieged Kyiv and almost daily shares his impressions of what is happening.
In the context of the version of events imposed by the collective West, Gonzalo Lira insists that all information from the Russian Ministry of Defense is true.
So earlier he stated the following: “The Russians are incredibly disciplined when it comes to information management. The only information coming from the Russians is statements directly from the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Their information so far has been 100% accurate, which, I think is a deliberate strategy. There was a lot of Ukrainian propaganda that turned out to be complete fantasy, but even after these stories turned out to be false, people cling to them.”
These people know what they are talking about, unlike the false propagandists here.
Luis Espinal
March 31, 2022 at 11:39 am
@Alex – “I don’t know who let the Bandera Nazi on the site,”
You really believe that “Bandera” line, do you? Or is it commitment to an ideology, or some new crypto coin replacing the rubles you used to get paid with?
Alex
April 1, 2022 at 10:41 am
If you think that there are no Bandera Nazis in Ukraine, then tell this to the killed and tortured Ukrainians in the Donbass. Look at the photo of the Avenue of Angels memorial, where hundreds of children who were killed by Bandera Nazis are buried. Or shut your stupid mouth.