‘Nowhere but the cemetery': Russia destroys Mariupol and plunders land, leaving residents homeless

The former residents of a nine-storey apartment block on Poltavska St in Mariupol have made an impassioned video appeal, with their message distressingly simple: “We want to live in our home”. 

In reposting the video on 6 August, the Mariupol City Council explained that the apartment block was shelled by the Russians in March 2022 and then, after Russia seized control, was demolished.  According to a scenario reported here earlier, the apartments built on the same land as those destroyed by Russian bombs are put up for sale, leaving their legitimate owners homeless. The residents say, very simply, that “we want to live in our building.  The apartments have been privatized and now they are depriving us of our homes.”  They have been living like down-and-outs for two years, with the payments they do receive impossible to live on. They may as well “go to the cemetery and jump into the graves” themselves, they add.

Such videoed appeals are a genre forced on residents of occupied parts of Ukraine, where Russia has destroyed any independent media and where no Russian-controlled publication will dare contradict the official, upbeat and highly distorted propaganda.   The Mariupol City Council writes that it is a genre that more and more Mariupol residents are turning to since the propaganda media will only “show features about a fake ‘reconstruction of the city’, while in fact thousands of residents are simply struggling to survive”.

As reported, back in 2023, many residents tried desperately to stop the new occupation ‘authorities’ from demolishing their buildings, understanding that they would, in that way, lose everything, including the land on which their apartments had stood.  Even were it true, as the invaders claimed in September 2023, that 1600 private homes had been reinstated, this would still have been only about 5% of the buildings which were badly damaged during Russia’s attack.  The figure then aroused open disbelief from residents who were forced to live either with relatives or in homes that were in a dangerous condition.  Most residents had no money to carry out the repairs and the occupation ‘authorities’ came up with any excuse, however cynical, for refusing to provide the funds, or for allocating clearly inadequate amounts.

In fact, the Ukrainians wanting to live in their own homes have little or no protection whether or not the apartment blocks were demolished.  On 1 July 2024, the pro-Russian Telegram channel MASH reported one glaring case, albeit claiming that the apartment block in question, on Likuvalny Alley, had been devastated not by the Russian tanks and bombers attacking the Ukrainian city, but by Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

The apartment block in question was supposed to undergo major repairs and an almost certainly Russian construction firm ‘Geopir’ was hired. The latter promised the building would be restored within a year.  That ‘deadline’ kept being extended, and the work is now simply being suspended.  Even the pro-Kremlin channel admits that the residents are being “fed only promises” from the occupation ‘authorities’ who are continuing to demand that the residents pay communal services.  They claim that this building which still lacks a roof, windows, pipes, etc.  “from the outside looks quite decent”.

As well as selling the properties built on the ruins of apartment blocks that the Russians destroyed, Russia is also actively stealing the property of those who managed to flee the Russian invasion.  The claim is that these properties are ‘ownerless’, with one of the ploys used for maximum plunder being to demand both Russian registration for the property (with this, in turn, requiring Russian citizenship) and that the owners come in person.  Any Ukrainian returning to occupied territory is in danger of being seized by the Russians, and then facing preposterous ‘spying’ or other charges.