Dear readers in Taiwan, this is Anna Romandash, the Kyiv special correspondent of Crossing.
The Russian-Ukrainian war came to the 6nth day. Russians now control a few cities near Crimea, but they failed to proceed farther West. They also retreated from the North of Ukraine, concentrating most of their force in the East.
Today, I would like to share with you some stories about the coastal city in southeastern Ukraine, Mariupol.
Mariupol was a home for nearly half a million Ukrainians. It is important for the Russian army because of its sea proximity. Also, the city borders the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a part of Ukraine controlled by Russia since 2014.
Only two months ago, this was a bustling port city with an active social life. While it is now almost completely destroyed with almost all buildings damaged.
For nearly two months, thousands of Mariupol residents were forced to live in basements due to constant Russian shelling. Thousands were forcefully deported to Russia where their passports have been taken away.
Tens of thousands have been killed.
According to the city mayor, Russians have killed at least 22,000 civilians in the city. They started using mobile crematoriums to hide the bodies and dug a mass grave on the edge of the city that could include around 9,000 corpses.
Those who survived and managed to evacuate tell horrifying stories of starvation, freezing, and sharing the basement with the corpses of their neighbors.
The girl in Azovstal
While Mariupol is almost wiped-out, the city remains a battleground. It still holds nearly 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers, mostly located in Azovstal, one of Europe’s biggest steel factories.
There are also at least 1,000 civilians who have been staying with them for a month as they were unable to evacuate.
Ukrainian soldiers made various appeals to world leaders to help organize humanitarian corridors so at least the wounded and the civilians could get evacuated. So far, they have not received a response. Russians have rejected any possibility for people to leave.
I got in contact with a soldier hiding in the factory by intermittent signals, and he gave me a video of the little girl Alyssa.
The four-year-old Alisa is one of the civilians at Azovstal. She has been hiding in the shelter for more than fifty days along with other locals from Mariupol. Alisa is the daughter of the paramedic.
“I want to be evacuated,” says Alisa, “I want to go home.”
Alisa’s appeal, however, remains unanswered.
Russian troops keep bombing Mariupol. Recently, Vladimir Putin stated that the Russian troops should move on from the city to other targets and let Ukrainians who remain at Azovstal remain there. Without evacuation, they are likely to die out of hunger or wounds.
There are more civilians who did not manage to evacuate from the ruined city, and they are now hiding in what used to be their homes. Without connection or electricity, these people are rarely able to reach out to their relatives in safer parts of Ukraine.
“I have not heard the voice of my grandfather since early March,” says Anna Chudanova, “He is supposed to turn 85 this July.” She is not sure that she could give birthday wishes to her grandfather.
“The houses still stand on this address”
Anna is a motion designer based in Kyiv. She is originally from Mariupol and lived there in 2014, when Russia occupied areas nearby. She remained there despite heavy fighting that was taking place only 20 kilometers away. In 2015, the woman moved to Lviv, Western Ukraine, to pursue a Master’s degree, and later, to Kyiv.
Her parents moved to the capital in 2021, but her grandfather, his wife, and a son remained in Mariupol. They were there when the war started.
“During the first days after the invasion, we thought that Mariupol was the safest place in Ukraine. At that time, there were military actions around Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy, but Mariupol seemed peaceful,” Anna says, “We even discussed with my family whether we should go there because we had a house there.”
While there was still a connection, Anna called her grandfather every day to check how he was. The man did not want to leave at first and joked that if he had to depart, then only to a cemetery.
Then, the situation started to change.
“On March 1 or 2, I called grandpa, and he told me that it goes scary there: there were bombings nearby, and they did not know what would come next. This is when they lost heating,” the woman recalls, “We have not been in touch with him afterward.”
Anna and her parents tried to call Mariupol, but there was no connection in the damaged city. The woman found a group on social media where people shared updates on what was happening in the city. Some managed to reach their relatives and published the information they learned from them.
In that group, people were writing things like: “On this address, the houses still stand” or “On that street, there was a bombing”.
For readers in Taiwan, it may not be easy to imagine, but I will make an analogy. When you hear "a few houses on 'Zhongxiao East Road' still stand", "There was just a bombing on 'Civic Boulevard'", this is probably the shock that Anna felt in the group.
Anna says, “From this group, we learned that the city did not have heating and water, the food was scarce, and those who could be cooking food by making fires on the streets. People were organizing phone charging places with generators. This is the 21st century!”
Some locals managed to find spots in the city where they could still connect to a mobile network. They would call their relatives for a brief moment just to inform them they were alive.
Relatives in the enemy’s propaganda
On March 15, some people managed to evacuate from Mariupol. Two of Anna’s close friends left. They called her and told her that they were already in a territory controlled by the Ukrainian army, so they managed to shower, eat hot food, and sleep in beds for the first time in weeks.
Anna explains that she felt relieved to learn that at least her close friends managed to save themselves. She has been in touch with them, listening to their horror stories of surviving in basements and nearly dying.
“Later, I found a person who told me that they saw my grandfather and that he was alive,” Anna says. However, she did not dare to be too happy, because the situation changes all the time.
The last time Anna got an update on her grandfather was at the beginning of April. Then, she learned that he was still alive as he appeared on the video on Russian propaganda TV. The stream showed a crowd of Mariupol civilians on the streets.
It's ironic that the family has to get somewhat in touch with the enemy's political propaganda, but Anna feels a lot more reassured.
Anna was also informed by locals that her family house is partially destroyed - like most buildings in Mariupol. And apartments nearby were completely ruined, but hers still stands. There are no more windows, but the apartment remains.
Meanwhile, Russian troops are still spreading lies that civilians were abandoned by Ukraine, and that it is Ukrainian forces who shot at them and left them to die.
At this moment, Anna's family can only continue to try to send messages, try their best to find the grandfather, and tell him to quickly find an opportunity to evacuate.
They also wondered, when can they really return to Mariupol? In any case, everything will never be the same again.
*中文版：鋼鐵廠的小艾莉莎、失聯的爺爺、萬人塚——在被俄軍摧毀的城市馬里烏波爾
Editor: Sylvia Tien
