"Our kids draw torn-up Russian flags": a chronicle of besieged Mariupol

Liza was proud of her city. She had spent all her life in Mariupol; she was a steelworker and frequent theatre-goer, as she had a great love of the theatre.

Everything changed on 24 February. Although Ukrainian military vehicles and equipment had already started rolling through the city’s streets, no one in Mariupol believed that war would soon put an end to their happy, peaceful lives - let alone that all of Mariupol would be razed to the ground.

Liza lived on the city’s right (west) bank. She says there were no explosions in her neighbourhood on 24 and 25 February; they could only be heard from afar, from the left bank. She recalls that when people who lived on the left bank started to arrive in her neighbourhood and talk about what was happening where they lived, the right bank residents could hardly comprehend what they were talking about: it all still seemed so far away from them… On the evening of 26 February, Russian forces started to attack the right bank. At that point, Liza and her daughter sought shelter in their building’s basement.

Liza told Ukrainska Pravda. Zhyttia about how she survived the hellish days of Mariupol’s siege with her 10-year-old daughter. She didn’t just talk about herself, but also told us about what was going on in the city, recreating its gradual methodical destruction by the Russian forces.

She spoke with particular warmth about the defenders of Mariupol, including the soldiers from the Azov Regiment, whom she sees almost as family. She spoke about the pro-Ukrainian sentiment which has grown in Mariupol since 2014, infusing the city’s public life.

This is Liza’s story in her own words.

"2 March: The first terrible day"

First the Russians destroyed the municipal heating system. They destroyed all of it: heating pipelines, control facilities, switchboards, administrative offices in charge of utility payments and management. These were deliberate attacks. The Russian forces were deliberately depriving the city of heat. In late February, early March, this was hellish. The cold was all-consuming. 

For a while we still had access to gas; the first things to be destroyed were the heating system, the waterworks, power lines. The first terrible date is probably 2 March, when all of that was gone, as was mobile service. You could no longer find out what was happening to your relatives in the next building over, let alone in the neighbouring district. We were isolated – from our relatives, our friends, our acquaintances… There was fighting on the streets and you couldn’t leave the shelter or move far from your home. You couldn’t call anyone either…

The only thing we could do was team up with others sharing bomb shelters with us. People started to gather in communes to try to survive together. Men risked their lives to leave these basements: some set out to reach their parents, others their wives and girlfriends, others still to find out what was happening outside. Many of them never came back. If they were absent for a day or two, we knew they were dead.

Once a young guy came to our bomb shelter looking for his wife and child – I think he’d been away from Mariupol on business when the war started. He’d been told they’d been taken to a shelter and he was looking for them at different bomb shelters. The next morning he was found dead – he was killed when he left our shelter…

"For a while we still had access to gas; the first things to be destroyed were the heating system, the waterworks, power lines. The first terrible date is probably 2 March, when all of that was gone, as was mobile service."

"Our forces refused to surrender the city until the very end"

Of course our forces put up a fierce resistance to the Russians. I don’t remember the exact day when Mariupol was finally encircled, but I remember the Azov Regiment waiting for reinforcements. A soldier from Azov once came to the bomb shelter where we were hiding, and we all tensed up – it’s always concerning when someone with a gun approaches civilians. He said, "Don’t worry, I’m here on a reconnaissance mission." They were waiting desperately for help.

There was a day when it seemed possible that reinforcements might arrive. When that day passed, with no reinforcements in sight, the news that Mariupol had been encircled started to spread among the city’s residents. In fact the city had been encircled several times, with multiple rings of enemy forces closing in on it. It was no longer possible to get help from the outside.

Our defenders were being increasingly pushed out from all sides: they were being pushed towards the city centre from the sea and from the left bank. Street battles were being fought in the vicinity of the National Drama Theatre [located in central Mariupol - ed.].

Our forces put up a fierce resistance. Later on they retreated to the Azovstal steelworks, though even there they continued to put up a fight. They engaged in street combat. Mariupol residents would talk about going to get water and ending up in the middle of a fight. They’d drop their water containers and run…

"The Russian soldier was taken aback that we weren’t glad to see him"

Mariupol was being destroyed. The Russians were pounding the city’s beautiful buildings, some of which had been recently refurbished, reconstructed or even built. The city centre was burned to the ground. The Russians deliberately targeted historic buildings; their claims that they were targeting strategic facilities don’t hold up – there are no such strategic facilities in the vicinity.

The city’s historic quarter, full of 19th-century buildings that survived World War II, has been eviscerated by the Russians. They burned the local history museum to the ground - but only after looting it. Now it seems as if Mariupol never existed, that it was never built. How can we prove to our descendants that this city existed once, if all its history has been burned?

Once a Russian soldier on a reconnaissance mission came to the basement where we were sheltering. He asked us, "So, how are you doing?" It was a stupid question. There were a lot of men in our shelter, so he didn’t dare go in. People asked him for some water: the kids were sick, they all had a high fever (it was -13ºC outside) and they were parched with thirst.

He said, "We’ve liberated you, and now we have to give you water and food as well?!"

One of the men picked up a shovel and said, "I’ll murder you with this shovel and then you’ll be liberated too!" The Russian soldier was really taken aback: how could it be that we weren’t overjoyed to see them?

He stood there and shrugged. Not a single person rushed to meet him with a delighted "We are so happy that you came." Not a single person!

Meanwhile, when our Ukrainian soldiers were able to stop by once or twice, everyone said to them, "You just hold on, guys! We are here… Hold on!" When the shelling was at its most ferocious, at least one Ukrainian soldier would stop by our shelter to warn us: "Don’t leave the shelter for a day or two, it will be very dangerous outside." Though they themselves were in a difficult situation, they still took care of the local residents, always finding ways to give us a warning.

"Mariupol residents hid Azov Regiment soldiers in their bomb shelters"

Once they’d encountered resistance in Mariupol, the Russians became truly savage. They continued to shell the areas where they met with resistance even after our forces had retreated. They were vengeful: "If you don’t surrender, we will kill all of you." Peaceful civilians supported the Azov Regiment, so they took out their rage on civilians.

Some people said, "They are taking revenge on our city because we gave shelter to Azov." But what does that mean – "gave shelter"? The regiment isn’t a stray puppy. Those people are our defenders, they were on their rightful land and they were defending that land.

Mariupol is a Ukrainian city, and it is defended by Ukrainian forces. Yes, we supported the Azov Regiment – how could we not? We hid Azov soldiers in our bomb shelters – for example, whenever a couple of soldiers ended up separated from the rest of their comrades, got ambushed, and couldn’t reach Azovstal. 

The Russians used to search everywhere, combing through every shelter looking for them. People would give our boys civilian clothes, they’d get changed, and single women would tell the Russians, "This is my husband." This happened a lot in Mariupol.

"People would give our boys civilian clothes, they’d get changed, and single women would tell the Russians, "This is my husband."

"What the hell do we need the ‘Russian World’ for?"

I have not met a single person – neither among my friends, nor among my acquaintances or colleagues – who said they’d been waiting for the "Russian World". [Russkiy mir, literally "Russian world" or "Russian order," is the concept of the total domination of Russian culture over other cultures; it gives rise to and "legitimises" Russia’s current expansionist, colonial politics - ed.] There might have been some people like that, but they weren’t in the majority.

People in Mariupol were not waiting for the Russians. No one was glad to see them, no one rushed to greet them with cries of "At last you are here!" We lived perfectly happily until 24 February.

Everything was great: no one humiliated, killed or raped us; no one forced us to do things we didn’t want to do. What the hell do we need the "Russian World" for? We are Ukraine!

I’m not sure that the crowds at the city-wide demonstrations in support of the "Russian World" in 2014 were entirely made up of Mariupol residents. I thought at the time that a lot of "outside" people were brought in for these "rallies".

When a Russian tank broke through to the House of Communications, Mariupol residents came out to stop it. Men armed with makeshift batons stood in the tank’s way. A sniper’s bullet killed my former classmate – he was shot in the head. He went to stop the Russians, not the Ukrainians.

Of course, there were some fools who treated Ukrainian soldiers as enemies. There were a few "vatniks" [a slang term for someone with a (post)Soviet mentality, usually implying active support for the Russian government, a nostalgia for the Soviet past, and a refusal to recognise Ukraine’s political and cultural independence - ed.]. People are strange. Whenever they don’t like something the government does – for example, whenever there’s a price hike – grandmas sitting around on benches get annoyed: "It was better in Soviet times!" Many people associate Russians with the Soviet Union. Perhaps that’s why some people were waiting for them to arrive.

But that was back in 2014. Now, I don’t know a single person who was glad to see the Russians. When the bombings became really relentless, when people were being shot in front of fires they’d made to cook food on, when we were gathering dead bodies in the streets and burying them in courtyards – how could we rejoice over any of that?

When the building where our bomb shelter was located was hit, one of the walls shifted some 20 cm and there was a danger that the entire structure might collapse – you should have heard how people were cursing the Russians! When the buildings around us were on fire, no one cursed the Azov Regiment – everyone cursed the Russians.

"Soldiers from the Azov Regiment taught open lessons for the kids in our schools"

After 2014, soldiers from the Azov Regiment would often teach open lessons for the kids in our schools. They didn’t talk to the kids about the war; they told them about Ukraine and its culture. They never encouraged aggression.

At the school my kids went to, we always knew when they would come, and the kids would make little presents for them. The guys from Azov would then pass those gifts on to their comrades at the front, and those soldiers would send back videos which showed the kids’ drawings on the walls of their dugouts. The children were so happy when they recognised their drawings in those videos! If you ask any child in Mariupol what country they consider their home, they will all say Ukraine, especially the little ones, six- and seven-year olds. That must be one of the reasons why the Russians were so intent on destroying Mariupol.

I think they must have lost their minds when they saw my apartment. On top of one of the cupboards I have a Ukrainian flag with the words "Mariupol is Ukraine!" emblazoned on it. That was something quite ordinary, really, for me and for many of us.

"The Russians deliberately targeted lift shafts – that way a whole building would catch fire and burn down"

The Russians often used their mortars to launch bombs at the fires we made to cook food on. The second you left the shelter, you’d hear the bombs whooshing. Fragments would explode in every direction, and you had to run and hide behind the iron doors of the nearest apartment block and then wait until it was over. Though of course, not everyone could reach safety in time.

Men always let women go first. As soon as they heard the whoosh, they’d rush us - "Faster, faster!" - and cover us with their bodies. Many of them died from shrapnel wounds.

Whenever there was a break in the shelling and bombardments, we’d run out with our spoons and our pots, trying to gather what little of our food was left. Because you only had those three potatoes you were boiling for your child – and they were gone. Try finding something to eat in those circumstances. Every time you left the basement to go to the fire, you weren’t sure if you’d make it back. But we took the risk and we went, because we couldn’t let our kids go hungry.

What sort of people are those Russian soldiers? They didn’t use Grads [multiple-launch rocket systems - ed.] or long-range artillery to attack us, they used close-range weapons from a distance that would allow them to see clearly that we were civilians, not the military. Civilians chopping wood to make fires, civilians making fires, civilians cooking food…

They pounded residential buildings; they even used tanks to do that. They deliberately targeted lift shafts – that way, the whole building would catch fire and burn down. And their aircraft! They dropped bombs on us every night, every single night! They’d drop seven to ten bombs on tiny neighbourhoods, clusters of a handful of buildings each – they called this a "mop-up operation", claiming that Ukrainian soldiers were hiding in those buildings…

"Many of the older people jumped out of the windows so as not to get burned alive"

In the early days, we had water from our peacetime stocks. Later we’d go to bombed-out shops, and the first thing we took was always water. We used anything we could find and even used sparkling water and sodas to cook food in.

There was no way to wash ourselves at all. The last time we were able to wash was on 7 March. We put together whatever water we could find, half a litre or so, and the three of us washed using that water. First we washed my child, then I and another woman also washed ourselves.

Most people were killed by snipers, in attacks on residential buildings, and in strikes on the fires people used to cook food on. There were many instances when a building would catch fire and the older people jumped out of the windows so as not to get burned alive. It was practically impossible to rescue them otherwise: the fire is raging, the walls are crumbling, there’s no way to get close to the windows to stretch out a blanket for them to land on because of the rubble.

There was a private residential neighbourhood right next to my house that was razed to the ground. Not even the frames of the houses remain, just ruins. Why? Because people from high-rise apartment blocks used to go and get water from their wells.

Whenever a residential building was hit, people had to rescue themselves and each other; all of the rescue workers from the State Emergency Service had joined the military. I don’t know about other districts and neighbourhoods, because as I said, we were cut off from each other, so I can only speak about what was happening near where I was.

"People broke into shops to get food"

I used to store food on my balcony, so when it was destroyed, my daughter and I only had dry biscuits to eat for two days. All the balconies in all the neighbouring buildings were destroyed. We had to do something, all these hungry women and children…

Men started to break into grocery stores to get some food. All the shops were quite far away from us - we had to survive bombardments to get there. People used parts from several damaged cars to assemble one that could be used to get to a shop or to fetch water from wells.

Sometimes people would return from these excursions with burns on their arms because the shop was on fire. Everyone helped one another. This unity is what makes us invincible as a people.

At the bomb shelter, we divided the food so that everyone would get some. Of course some people only cared about themselves, they’d steal a bunch of stuff and refuse to share it, but people like that were few and far between.

I remember several men decided to go to a market which was also quite far away. There they found a car trailer, loaded it with food, and the three of them pulled the trailer, like horses, all the way to our shelter. When we went out to meet them they said, "What are you standing there for? Come on, unload it all, it's for all of us."

There were a lot of elderly people, many on their own, some unable to walk. The men used to walk around the nearby damaged buildings, breaking locks to enter apartments so they could reach those people and get them to bomb shelters. We cooked food for them too.

It was a real siege. When we got out of Mariupol and reached Zaporizhzhia, we bought some fresh bread at a stall near the train station. My daughter really went for it!

She’d not had any bread for a month. Many of our children can no longer eat chocolate or biscuits: that was all we could get for them in the nearby stalls which we were forced to break into.

"All the top doctors in Mariupol were killed"

So many doctors were killed in Mariupol. They continued to do operations until the very end. The Russians bombed hospitals mercilessly. They knew that wounded soldiers were brought there along with injured civilians. An ear, nose and throat specialist from a hospital where there were wounded Azov Regiment soldiers betrayed them to the Russians. They came and took our guys away. The doctor then left with the Russians. 

All operations took place in hospital basements; many were accompanied by airstrikes, some of which destroyed those basements. Many doctors were killed during surgery. Many top professionals - highly accomplished, award-winning doctors - have lost their lives.

One doctor who used to drive around in his car to search for injured civilians and take them to hospital was killed. He was killed in a strike as he was handing some injured civilians over to other doctors.

Children in bomb shelters started getting ill from the cold.

Where did we get medicines from? Some people brought everything they had at home with them. Once a man came in and said, "I broke into an apartment." He’d used a screwdriver to carefully open the lock, took only medicines, then locked the apartment again. In many of the flats, the front doors had been blown off: windows in the entrance halls and stairwells were broken, and the doors were blown off by blast waves. People would go into those apartments to look for medicine. It was thanks to the medicine brought by these men that my daughter survived.

"Bodies were no longer recovered from under the rubble"

How were people’s bodies recovered from under the rubble of the destroyed buildings? They weren’t. For any sort of recovery work to take place the shelling would have to stop, however briefly, but it was relentless throughout March and April.

It was nearly impossible to clear away the rubble. For a while there was no way to bury people either: you could get killed while digging a grave.

From around 9 March, we started making fires for cooking in the entrance halls of buildings. We made a metal pipe and put it through a broken window to prevent the fumes from going into the basement where we were hiding.

We couldn’t leave the shelter at all, not for a minute! You couldn’t even go near the dead bodies in the streets to bury them, let alone try to clear away the rubble… Mariupol continued to be bombed even after all of its defenders had retreated to Azovstal and there were no Ukrainian military personnel there.

There were no Ukrainian soldiers in my district for a long time and it was still shelled. They just pounded residential buildings. The top floors of most buildings were destroyed. The fourth to ninth floors just burned down.

At first municipal services would pick up corpses from the streets and bury them in mass graves, but then the Russians started firing on those municipal workers as well.

"These kids hate anything to do with Russia. They draw torn-up Russian flags."

"Our kids draw torn-up Russian flags"

My 10-year-old daughter completely rejects everything Russian. Before the war, she could watch Russian films and listen to Russian music. Now she refuses to.

Now and again she asks me whether an actor or a singer is Russian, and if I say yes, she scrunches up her face in distaste: "Booooo! Ew!" A complete rejection. All of the kids from Mariupol I know or have heard about do the same. There is no need to explain anything to them, to tell them what the Russians have done: they’ve seen it all with their own eyes, they understand everything, regardless of their age.

These kids hate anything to do with Russia. They draw torn-up Russian flags. Teenagers are taking an active part in Mariupol’s underground resistance movement.

Some partisans flew a Ukrainian flag atop a Mariupol building on Ukraine’s Independence Day [24 August - ed.]. It’s a miracle that they were able to get it up there…

"Plays for children are being performed in the square in front of the National Drama Theatre!"

Many people from my neighbourhood were sheltering in the National Drama Theatre. Everyone was convinced that the Russians would not attack it: there were no military personnel there, only civilians, and huge letters in front of the theatre spelled out the word "CHILDREN".

The Russians bombed the Drama Theatre soon after their attack on the maternity hospital. Heavily pregnant women and newborns had been evacuated to the right wing of the Drama Theatre where the dressing rooms were, as it was relatively warm there. It was the right wing that the Russians hit.

And now the Russian occupiers have poured bleach, then concrete, over the corpses. They are performing plays – even children’s plays – in the theatre. The small stage survived the attack – that’s where rehearsals take place. Performances are being given on the square in front of the theatre where countless people were killed: men who’d gone out to get some tea, young women who volunteered to cook and deliver food to people. The Russians have set up a screen on the square to show Soviet cartoons to children.

Who are we being "liberated" from? Not a single rally with people holding banners saying "SOS! Dear Russians, help us, we are being killed here!" has ever been held in Mariupol.

Not a single Mariupol resident who went abroad for business or leisure has ever organised a picket in any foreign country begging for Mariupol to be saved from Ukrainian fascists. No one has ever pleaded for help – "Help! Azov Regiment soldiers are raping and killing us!" – on social media either.

The Russians call the Azov Regiment "fascists", but can any Mariupol residents present any evidence of crimes against humanity that have been committed by Azov fighters? Many of my acquaintances visited Lviv before the full-scale war – they returned bearing souvenirs and beautiful photos and brimming with wonderful experiences. None of them were beaten up for speaking Russian there.

"The kids were hysterical when we finally reached a Ukrainian checkpoint: ‘These are our guys! We’re home!’"

We left Mariupol at the end of March, under mortar-launched bombs. We prayed out loud. The men fixed up several damaged cars and we drove to the first checkpoint near the entrance to the city which the Russians used to enter Mariupol.

We wanted to get to the burned-down Port-City shopping mall, where the Ukrainian government organised evacuation convoys. The Russians knew about this and constantly shelled the approaches to the mall.

We couldn’t make it onto a single evacuation bus, so decided to go under our own steam. At the Russian checkpoint we were searched and only allowed to keep going on foot.

There was truly a sea of people. Everyone was trying to leave the city however they could. There were DPR buses there [the DPR is the illegally self-proclaimed and Russian-controlled "Donetsk People’s Republic" - ed.]: they were taking people to Russian-occupied Volodarsk, a tiny town near Mariupol. But going to Volodarsk meant saying goodbye to Ukraine for good: there were multiple buses waiting there that were bound only for Rostov [Russia].

Some Russians approached us, asking, "Why don’t you get on? These are comfortable buses. We’ll take everyone to Rostov." We knew that we had to make it to Berdiansk at any cost – at the time you could still leave for Zaporizhzhia through Berdiansk.

The journey from Berdiansk to Zaporizhzhia was a nightmare. It took us seven hours to get there: we took numerous detours and were travelling as part of a large convoy, because the bigger the convoy, the less likely it is to be shelled. The Russians who let us out of Berdiansk were so puzzled about why so many of us were leaving: "Where are you all going? To Zaporizhzhia, to Ukrainian-controlled territory? Why?"

In Berdiansk we boarded a chartered minibus. When we reached the first checkpoint in the "grey zone" between the Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled territories, we looked back and saw that the convoy we were part of stretched all the way to the horizon, its end out of our sight. 

There were many burnt-out cars on the roads that we travelled. People’s belongings scattered, emptied suitcases… I will never forget one burnt-out white SUV with a burnt children’s car seat lying right next to it and a pair of blackened children’s shoes.

We drove through a small village and the minibus driver told us, "Don’t let your children look out of the windows." It wasn’t his first time driving this route. We asked him, "Because we might get shelled?" and he replied, "No. The children mustn’t see what’s outside the windows."

We moved the kids away from the windows and looked out… There were dead bodies wrapped in rags in every yard. In every single yard. Those who’d survived and been able to wrap them in those rags had left the village. All of the buildings were completely destroyed. Some bore signs of tank attacks.

There were women, elderly people and children in our minibus. The kids were exhausted by the journey: there were many Russian checkpoints on the way from Berdiansk, and at each one we were met by nothing but rudeness and endless searches… As soon as we left one checkpoint, we’d be queuing for the next one.

We weren’t allowed to leave the minibuses we were in. We were told that if we needed to use the toilet, we could just go right by the minibus. Finally, after driving off from one of the checkpoints, one of the kids in the minibus spotted a Ukrainian flag in the distance.

The kids were hysterical. They started screaming, "Those are our guys! Look, those are our guys! This is Ukraine!" God, how we cried…

As we approached the Ukrainian checkpoint, we saw our guys there. One got into our minibus to check our documents. Everyone was crying, the kids were screaming, "Our guys! Our guys! We’re home!" and rushing to hug him… At first he tried to calm everyone down: "Everything is okay, you’re safe now." Then his eyes filled with tears as these dirty kids who hadn’t washed for a month, who had spent weeks in bomb shelters, stretched their arms out to him, saying, "You’re our guys! You’re ours!"

Olena Cherednychenko, Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia

Translation: Olha Loza

Editing: Teresa Pearce

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