As the Russian Federation hides crimes in Mariupol: bone buildings and population replacement
Focus learned how a city, which was rated by our magazine, included in the thirty of the most comfortable cities of Ukraine and was actively developing, now living in occupation. From February 24, 2022, the city on the coast of the Azov Sea was under constant Russian fire. On the territory of Mariupol there were street battles, on houses, hospitals, schools flying aviation - the city was in the blockade. Hundreds of thousands of local were forced to leave homes, tens of thousands were killed.
There were bodies all over the city, new, often unrecognized graves have emerged every day. Bodies are sometimes taken to the cemetery, they are found during repair work, it is difficult to identify. If possible, they are buried in the city cemetery. Somewhere else you can see burials along the roads or unbridled blockages. However, Russian social networks and media are not told about burial.
There you can see the rollers, how "in Russia" lives the city - "happy people", "new houses" and "disappearance of all Ukrainian". The Russian Federation tries to create a new, prosperous city that lives and develops "under its wing" from Mariupol. No one shows the already destroyed high -rise buildings and cemetery, the occupying power brings new buildings with playgrounds, opens beaches and install sculptures.
"At first, the Russian Federation, I think, did not intend to do anything with Mariupol at all, left the destroyed. But in August 2022, Ukraine hit the Crimean bridge well, and the Russians began to use exclusively by road through Mariupol," says the mayor of Mariupol Petro Andryushchenko. - Then the Russian military realized that they need a convenient logistics base. Mariupol as a base is suitable. Berdyansk could also be considered, but in Mariupol the best port, it is unique on the Azov Sea.
that is very convenient to have such a military-logistics base in Mariupol. Simple pragmatics. On the other hand, the battles for money were kept, the Russians spray the city by the spheres of influence, who was doing. The reconstruction went. Now they are already promising to rebuild Bakhmut and Avdiivka. . But I doubt. " That is, the Russian Federation Mariupol was initially interested as a logistics base, as in its time Crimea, which would provide a certain area of the front.
Propaganda is the second layer, originally about logistics. Andryushchenko says, now Mariupol is a kind of showcase that can be shown to the Russians and the so -called international partners, they say, see what a beautiful city. No one says how the city was before the invasion, demonstrate paintings of destruction and reconstruction. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine as of January 1, 2022, more than 425 thousand people lived in Mariupol.
In the spring of 2022, the UN report called the number of left city - 350 thousand. How many died, it is not known for sure. As well as how much is in the city. In the summer of 2023, the Russian Vicemier Marat Husnullin stated that the population of Mariupol is 270 thousand people. Ukrainian sources talk about less. Civilians who lived before a full-scale invasion remain about 50-55 thousand, some return to the city, but mostly pensioners.
Also in Mariupol there are already about 50-60 thousand migrants from the Russian Federation, in particular, Central Asia. And also military and employees of different special services. They are about 10-15 thousand. That is, in general, twice as less than the stated Russian. "Russia does not bring its citizens already to Mariupol, it encourages them to move very actively," Andryushchenko continues. "These are two different processes.
The first she, indeed, brought more than a year ago, this began in the fall of 2022, when migrants from Central Asia were involved. There were 10-15 thousand. " But little they began to disappear. They were mobilized and sent to the front. The second wave of replacement is directly the Russians. Russia stimulates them to move to Mariupol to permanent residence.
"That is, it is said that the first wave in the implementation of the policy of replacement of the Ukrainian population by the Russian population took place at the expense of migrants not Slavic appearance. They, in our opinion, became citizens of the Russian Federation recently, and before that were citizens of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. The second - At the expense of Russian citizens from the center of the regions.
That is, in these two years, such changes in the composition of the population can be seen, " - says the adviser of the mayor Mariupol. The Russian Federation is incited to move to Mariupol, first, luring, in particular, work and high wages. In Mariupol, some categories of workers Russians, indeed, pay high wages. For example, drivers of so -called communal transport. Secondly, they promise housing. Mortgage under 2% with a minimum first contribution.
In the spring, a new mortgage program starts, and in fact the distribution of the remaining but surviving apartments. That is, distributing for nothing even with the personal belongings of the owners of apartments, who, running from Mariupol, leaving them, or died during an attack on the city. They sell and partially destroyed housing, motivating that it will increase in price over time.
"They are offered good conditions, mortgages, pennies for the first contribution, they will pay it for 30 years. -15 thousand rubles per month, and in Mariupol for the same work-30-35 thousand. To such people go, they are offered additional benefits: temporary housing, free lunches. This is all strange, but the conditions of the broken Mariupol are better than those in which they lived before, " - says Petro Andryushchenko. To which Russia turned Mariupol, is clearly visible in satellite images.
Investigators repeatedly published the pictures made before and after the invasion. According to the UN report, about 90% of high -rise buildings and more than half of private homes were destroyed in two months of fighting in the city in two months of fighting. In November 2022, the legal Mariupol City Council reported that more than 50,000 apartments were destroyed during the city fighting.
But despite such destruction, the Russian authorities, after taking control of the city, began to call the residents of the regions of the Russian Federation to move to Mariupol. They began to build new housing and restore the old. "A lot of graves remained in the private sector. If we talk about the big burial grounds, they were marked with houses - they were taken out with the corpses to the trash. In these places they started construction.
An extreme example: at the site of two large burial ground Riding to Mangush village, high -rise buildings grew. house. Those who remain in the occupation are shocked. The Russians do not bypass. The process with burials is long over. Now new quarters are being built, "Andryushchenko adds. And to do this, to wear old houses, mostly in the city center, to erect not just new ones, but changing the numbering.
Thus, even those who are left with the locals in Mariupol, having lost their home, are unlikely for sale. The most prestigious areas are by the sea and closer to the center. Houses are built on the outskirts of the city, they also sell apartments. Both are bought by Russians. Instead, if you read the comments of residents in different local publications, you can see many complaints about the refusal of the occupying power to compensate for losses, forced eviction and construction quickly.
Someone writes that the Russians were poseing houses, they promised to provide housing, but then refuse their words. Someone complains that he can not wait for compensation for the destroying. Both both write complaints to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. Utilities in the city are not fully provided. For example, the heating systems could not be restored, and if it becomes cold - most turns on heaters, then the electricity does not withstand.
There are often interruptions with drinking water. Instead, payments for the utility come full. Now experts say that the strategic task of the Russian Federation is to change the composition of the population in the occupied territories. Physically and mentally. It was first in the Crimea, then in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and now the south is inhabited by military and employees of special services who bring their families. Not only for war or business trip, but for permanent residence.
"It should be understood that what Russia is doing when pushing the local population of the occupied territories and importing its citizens is at least a military crime. In some circumstances, it can qualify as a crime against humanity," says the focus of Crimeos Analytik, Yevgeny Yaroshenko. He says that from the first weeks of the occupation of Crimea it was possible to record the movement of the population.
"Obviously, one of the factors was that the arrival of the occupation regime means that many people who demonstrated certain views, or belonged to certain groups, were at risk of persecution, and therefore were forced to leave Crimea, move to mainland Ukraine.
First of all, it concerns pro -Ukrainian activists, some religious groups that were free to operate until 2014, but with the illegal distribution of Russian legislation, they became allegedly extremists or terrorists in an instant, "he says. Over time, repression began to apply not only to pro -Ukrainian sympathizers, every time the number of people and new groups is constantly expanding.
In the end, many Crimeans were faced with a choice: either stay in the Crimea and put themselves in danger, or go beyond it and begin to build their lives from scratch, which is of course very difficult. Forced certification was an additional factor for departure of the population from the Crimea.
Not everyone wanted to receive a Russian passport, and without Russian citizenship it was impossible to receive medical care on the peninsula, significantly cut opportunities for employment, it is forbidden to own private property in almost all over the Crimea. "On the other hand, Russia has begun to promote the active displacement of its citizens to the Crimea from the first year of occupation," Yaroshenko continues. "It was caused by several factors.
First, Russia needed a bureaucratic apparatus in the occupation administration that was loyal to it. To see that many leaders of the occupation bodies are so-called departments. That is, the invaders do not always trust the Crimean-citizens. Many judges. Russia began to rapidly militize Crimea.
If, within the framework of the Agreement on the Condition of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia, it was allowed to keep no more than 20,000 servicemen, then after illegal occupation, completely ignored the previous agreements, they began to move their military contingent in an unlimited amount. In the first five years of the occupation of Crimea, the number of servicemen increased 2. 5 times. " Often, the resettlement of servicemen was also the importation of families.
Many residents of remote regions of the Russian Federation were able to move to warm Crimea. "However, prices for housing in Crimea were not so cheap, and salaries are not so high. Perhaps only at the beginning. A few years ago, prices in Sevastopol could be compared with prices in Moscow, and salaries with salaries of mainland in Ukraine. who moved in the beginning, realized that they were expensive and returned back, - the analyst "Crimeanos" recalls.
- But many representatives of special services and prisons were also resettled, who began to introduce a repressing large -scale practice of torture. Russia has moved from 500 to 800 thousand its citizens in ten years. The Russian Federation uses resettlement as a way of changing the demographic composition of the population to replace the most Ukrainians with more loyal representatives of the Russian measure.
" A similar scenario is now being implemented in Mariupol and other cities in the occupied territories. Citizens with Russian passports also live in Kakhovka of the Kherson region or Energodar of Zaporizhzhya. Whether those who are waiting for Ukraine remain there. For example, Mariupolka is sure of this.