“Eyewitnesses reported that about 300 people died in the Mariupol Drama Theater as a result of the bombing by a Russian plane,” Ukrinform reported today based on a Telegram statement by the Mariupol City Council. Russia raised to the ground the theater that was established in 19th century and was most famous for playing Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Nabokov as well as Moliere, Maeterlinck and Shakespeare.
The City Council noted that it was the so-called “Russian World” imperial ideology leaders that cynically destroyed the theater. These Russian fascists of the 21st century were not stopped by the huge inscription “CHILDREN” or the statements by the people themselves that only civilians – women, children, the elderly – were sheltered there.
The City Council statement reads: “The invaders knew where they were going. They knew what the consequences to expect but still, the bombs fell on the very place that became a refuge for hundreds of Mariupol residents. There can be no explanation for this inhuman cruelty. Nor can be forgiveness for those who brought destruction, pain and suffering to our home.”
They said they would be able to restore the buildings, but would never be able to return the dead. “Bright memory of all innocent victims of the senseless war waged against Ukraine by the aggressor country, the terrorist country Russia,” the statement said.
As Ukrinform reported, the Russian aggression caused a terrible humanitarian catastrophe in Mariupol. The invaders have been bombing unarmed residents and blocking humanitarian aid.
On March 16, Mariupol was subjected to multiple enemy bombings, with airstrike alert sirens kept going on and off all day. Hundreds of people, mostly women, children and the elderly, hid from the constant shelling in the Drama Theater and the Neptune Basin building.
Despite the continuous shelling after the destruction of the theater, debris cleaning continued, as the bomb shelter under the theater withstood an enemy airstrike.
The commander of the Azov Regiment said that the number of civilian casualties in Mariupol was growing daily and amounted to more than three thousand people.
Deputy Prime Minister – Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said that Russian troops had almost destroyed the city, and that all civilians seemed to be on a death march.
