What happened in Mariupol was beyond any negative scenario anticipated. The “bloodiest” war forecast, made public in early February 2022, was associated with the storming of Kyiv. Then, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, General Mark Milley, stated that in the event of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv would fall within 72 hours, leading to 15,000 Ukrainian military deaths and 4,000 Russian military deaths. It was also predicted that as a result of military actions, 50,000 civilians would die or be wounded.
Strangely enough, Ukrainian forces could have held Mariupol under one condition: if the assault on the city came from the direction of the DPR, that is, from the east and north. In 2015, several months of heavy fighting took place about 10-12 kilometers east of Mariupol for the settlement of Shyrokyne. Then, the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to hold the dominant heights, preventing the Russians from shelling the city with artillery. However, in 2022, no defense plan anticipated that Mariupol would be completely encircled just three days after the war began. I remind you that on February 25, the day after the invasion, Russian troops were on the outskirts of Melitopol: a 200-thousand city located halfway between Crimea and Mariupol.
The Ukrainian army in the south had a critically insufficient level of equipment. It turned out that only one brigade was defending the Kherson region at the border with Crimea, and even it was not fully staffed. Melitopol and Berdyansk simply had no one to defend them. President Volodymyr Zelensky had 4 months from the time he received intelligence data about Putin’s plans to start the war. Unfortunately, he did almost nothing to strengthen the state’s defense capability.
Zelensky’s infamous words: “We can increase the army two or three times, but then, for example, we won’t be able to build roads,” which he used a week before the war began to explain his reluctance to increase funding for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, became a death sentence not only for the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol but also for tens of thousands of civilians. How many of them died in their apartments and on the streets during those few weeks of siege: 10,000, 15,000, 25,000? We will likely only find out after the city is de-occupied.
The war began for the residents of Mariupol at 3:45 a.m. with artillery shelling. In the morning, the assault on the city began, but not from the east, as in 2015, but from the north – from the Volnovakha highway. Near the village of Pavlopil, the first battle took place, during which the Russians lost several tanks and could not break through to the near approaches to Mariupol. After that, the enemy changed the direction of the main strike and began to encircle the city from the west, from the direction of Melitopol, where there were neither fortification systems nor enough troops for defense.
As the further course of the war showed, on the example of the not entirely successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Zaporizhzhia region in June 2023, defense can be quite effective with continuous minefields and a system of trench fortifications. Nothing like this was near Mariupol. As one of the defenders of “Azovstal,” Kyrylo Berkut, later recalled, before the war, Ukrainian military did not have the opportunity to build fortifications near Mariupol. This land was in use by farmers, and no one could or wanted to transfer it to the military without imposing martial law. Therefore, Mariupol could effectively defend only from the eastern direction, where positions of Ukrainian troops were arranged since 2015, and where, due to the proximity to the front line, no agricultural activity was conducted.
As for the city itself, in the first two days, Mariupol, though shelled by artillery and aviation, did not yet suffer catastrophic damage. Some residents even continued to go to work. In the first days, the Russians bombed critical infrastructure enterprises. Here is how the mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, described these events in an interview with the Ukrainian news website “Left Bank”:
“For the first five days, they systematically targeted 15 electrical lines that provided electricity to the city. As a result, all were destroyed − the city was left without electricity and heat in a frost of 11 degrees. …When they cut off the electric pump stations that pump water, we were left without water. We switched to a backup pump – it would have lasted us for a year. But someone led the enemy artillery there, and it bombed that source too. Then we were left without water.”
From February 28, the shelling of the city intensified. The Russians used rocket artillery, “Tochka-U” missiles, and aviation. Initially, Mariupol was bombed by two planes, dropping bombs every half hour, then five planes began to bomb.
Civilians had two days to evacuate. On February 26, the Russians entered Berdyansk without a fight, and the next day they cut off the roads connecting Mariupol with the rear. For the first two days, it was still possible to leave the city by train, then the railway tracks were bombed.
On February 28, Mariupol was surrounded. According to Mayor Boychenko’s assessment, in the first days of the war, about 140,000 people managed to leave the city by private transport and railway. To prevent organized evacuation, the occupiers bombed parking lots for municipal vehicles and city buses.
At the time of the encirclement, about 300-350 thousand people remained in Mariupol. Some stores closed almost immediately after the war began, but some grocery stores and pharmacies operated until March 2, as long as there was electricity. Looting began on March 2-3 after the power was cut off. Food was taken first. Massive looting of industrial goods began in April, after the occupation began. Russians and some residents of Donetsk, associated with the military of the DPR, came to Mariupol in trucks and took away all valuable things from closed stores and offices.
On March 7, gas was turned off in Mariupol’s homes. This significantly worsened the humanitarian situation: people could no longer cook food at home and heat their apartments. After that, locals began to light fires in courtyards and cook on open fires.
The mass death of the city’s residents began on March 7-8. The Left Bank district, located in the eastern part of the city, across the Kalmius River, suffered the most initially. That’s when the bloodthirstiness and inhumanity of the Russian army became fully apparent. They shelled and bombed Mariupol following the Syrian scenario: regardless of the risk of civilian casualties.
The most shelling and air strikes occurred from March 8 to March 14. After March 14, some outskirts of Mariupol came under Russian control, and the battles moved to the central part of the city, then towards “Azovstal” and the port.
“They didn’t touch the port. I think they left the port for themselves because you understand that the Azov Sea in Russia is shallow, 4-5 meters deep, and then the Taganrog Bay. Our depth of the Azov Sea reaches 14 meters – ships can freely enter. I think they understood this, so they were tasked with destroying everything except for the port. That’s why there are practically no hits on the port. The only place that was hit was the grain terminal, so we couldn’t take grain from there, mill flour, and bake bread,” recalls the city’s mayor, Vadym Boychenko.
Starting on March 15, the city’s residents began to evacuate from the city independently, on foot, and by car. By that time, a significant part of the city was already under Russian control, so the bombings subsided a bit. For about a week, it was relatively safe to leave towards Zaporizhzhia. During this time, about 100,000 people left Mariupol. Then the Russians closed the evacuation route towards Ukraine and allowed departure only to Russia.
Many city residents died in their apartments. When a Russian missile hit a building, it often caused the collapse of an entrance or a fire. The explosion wave jammed doors, and people were trapped in a fire, unable to descend to lower floors. Thus, hundreds of civilians were burned alive in their apartments. Thousands more died under the rubble or from flying debris while on the street.
At least several hundred Mariupol residents were buried alive in the basements of their homes. If an airstrike hit an entrance and the building’s structures collapsed onto the lower floors, it sometimes completely blocked the exit from the basement for everyone seeking shelter from the shelling.
Evidence of many of the Russian military’s crimes appeared only after the defense of the city ended. The advisor to the city head, Pavlo Andryushchenko, reported in March 2023 that during the clearing of ruins of a house on Novorossiyskaya Street, 16, in its basement, about 200 bodies of deceased Mariupol residents were found. Only about 70 corpses were retrieved and buried: only those that were relatively intact. All other deceased were taken away with construction debris. Earlier, in May 2022, a similar horrific discovery was made during the clearing of the rubble of multi-story buildings in the area of suburban gas station-2 on Mira Avenue. In the basement of a destroyed building, several dozen bodies of people who died under the rubble with a high degree of decomposition were found.
After Mariupol, the Russians conducted their barbaric assaults on cities on other fronts. It’s worth mentioning the obliterated Bakhmut, Popasna, Maryinka, and Avdiivka. But in Bakhmut, Maryinka, and Avdiivka, residents had the opportunity to evacuate, and during the defense of these cities, search and rescue services operated for some time. Popasna is the only exception in this list. According to the testimony of surviving eyewitnesses, during the shelling of this small town, a situation similar to Mariupol was observed, resulting in the death of several hundred people.
The world was shocked by the horrific footage of the aftermath of the airstrike on the Drama Theatre, where hundreds of people were sheltering. The Russian pilot was not even deterred by the fact that “CHILDREN” was written in large letters on the square in front of the building. As a result of this mass murder, at least 300 civilians died.
The tragedy of Mariupol occurred not only because this city was in the path of an army for which the life of civilians means nothing. Another reason for the humanitarian catastrophe was the encirclement of the city. Unlike Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Mariupol residents lost the ability to evacuate to safe regions just two days after the war began, so they simply sat in their apartments and basements, waiting for death. Search and rescue and fire services in the city did not operate. No one cleared the rubble. Emergency medical services stopped responding to calls. People who were injured by bomb fragments most likely died from bleeding out.
According to the chief doctor of the Mariupol regional hospital, Oleksandr Yaroshenko, the number of dead in the city is about 20,000 people. The city’s mayor, Vadym Boychenko, agrees with this figure. The exact number of victims is unknown, as Russian authorities meticulously hide this data. Satellite images of Mariupol and its surroundings show that the dead, who began to be collected from the streets and exhumed from makeshift burials in courtyards after the occupation began, were mostly buried in mass graves at four cemeteries near the settlements of Mangush, Stary Krym, Vinohradne, and in Mariupol itself.
Examining the causes of the Mariupol tragedy, attention should be paid to the actions of not only the Russian army but also the Ukrainian one. That the brutality of the Russians is hardly limited by any boundaries is unlikely to be contested by anyone. Surrounding the city, they blocked a 5,000-strong group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The city was doomed − a week later, the front line was moved almost 100 kilometers away from Mariupol. What was the point of destroying residential buildings with aerial bombs? In these conditions, Mariupol would have surrendered sooner or later anyway.
As for the actions of the Ukrainian army, there are several points that many do not wish to emphasize. Analysis of statements and interviews given by some defenders of Mariupol during the defense and after returning from Russian captivity gives grounds to assert that the actions of the “Azov” regiment’s leadership can be assessed not as heroism but as adventurism, leading to terrible consequences.
Military science, which has a history of many hundreds of years, always clearly indicates that the commander of a military unit must make maximum efforts to ensure his force does not get encircled. And if it happens that his unit is encircled, the commander’s main task should be to break out of the encirclement to join the main forces.
What was the commander of the “Azov” regiment, Denys Prokopenko, doing on the eve of the war? According to his wife Kateryna, on February 14, 2022, ten days before the full-scale invasion, they were sitting together in a Mariupol cafe, and he was telling her that he was developing a defense plan for Mariupol.
Undoubtedly, a defense plan for Mariupol is a very necessary thing, especially for a military commander who knows or suspects that a war will start in a few days. But Denys Prokopenko’s plan, most likely, was that the “Azov” regiment would not leave Mariupol. He didn’t even consider the possibility that they would have to leave the city for operational maneuver or to avoid encirclement.
February 24, the beginning of the war. Military personnel from the “Azov” regiment begin to move water and food supplies to the underground bomb shelters of “Azovstal”. This plant, covering 11 square kilometers, has 36 multi-level bomb shelters, connected by several tunnels. If necessary, several thousand people could be accommodated there. On the same day, the military inspected another large metallurgical plant in Mariupol – the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. Here is how one of the officers of the “Azov” regiment, Kyrylo Berkut, recalls those events:
“We did not get access to critical infrastructure. We just received fire safety diagrams and just planned on the maps what, how, who would act. We only got acquainted with the plant on the 24th. We were performing the combat task of repelling and repelling the enemy’s attacks. They began to advance from the Volnovakha highway first, we repelled them. The enemy changed the direction of the main strike and began to encircle the city from the west side…”
On May 8, 2022, Denys Prokopenko, having been in encirclement in the bunker of the “Azovstal” plant for several weeks, gave a short interview to the editor of “Ukrainska Pravda,” Sevgil Musaieva, via satellite internet. In it, the “Azov” commander confirmed that his decision to stay in Mariupol, despite the complete encirclement, was completely deliberate.
“We consciously went into this cauldron. Understanding that, according to the defense plan, it would be necessary to conduct circular defense in the city, and it actually happened,” Prokopenko stated.
These words were not a sensation. Already on February 26, at 10 a.m., that is, two days before the Russian forces cut off the route to Zaporizhzhia and completed the encirclement of the city, Prokopenko posted a video message on the “Azov” Telegram channel, stating that he orders every fighter of the “Azov” regiment to fight “to the last drop of blood.” Denys Prokopenko assured that his regiment, together with the National Guard of Ukraine and other law enforcement structures, reliably defends the city of Mariupol.
How can the decision of the “Azov” commander be assessed? Indeed, Mariupol could have been defended for a long time even against superior enemy forces. But only under several conditions: if the defenders of the city are not encircled, have evacuation routes for the wounded, the possibility of replenishing ammunition and personnel. On February 26, when Russian forces easily entered Melitopol, it was clear that Mariupol would be completely encircled within a few days.
To avoid catastrophe, on February 26-27, 2022, the military command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should have ordered the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol to urgently retreat from the city: either to join the main forces or to conduct military operations west of Mariupol to prevent encirclement. Apparently, such an order was not given. We do not know how President Zelensky, as the Supreme Commander, interfered with the military’s work. One way or another, Valeriy Zaluzhny, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, should have convinced Zelensky to agree that Mariupol needed to be urgently abandoned.
From this puzzle, we know two components. Prokopenko, as the commander of the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, was very eager to fight in the city, even though the defense in complete encirclement was doomed to defeat in advance. Moreover, “Azov” did not even have enough military equipment and ammunition before the city’s defense began.
“In ‘Azov’, there were up to 7 APCs in the 1st battalion, 4-5 operational MT-LBs in the second battalion, a small number of APCs and armored vehicles. (According to the standard, there should be 30 APCs in a battalion)… Only one company in each battalion was fully staffed. Part of the artillery was under deep repair in the rear. There was a catastrophic shortage of shells,” says “Azov” officer Kyrylo Berkut.
Prokopenko had the opportunity to start defense on the distant approaches to Mariupol to avoid encirclement. But the “Azov” regiment and the 36th Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not leave the city but decided to prepare for combat in urban areas.
Zelensky, as subsequent episodes of the war showed, sometimes interfered in military decisions, despite lacking the required expertise. For example, informed sources claimed that the president was against withdrawing troops from Severodonetsk and Bakhmut, although the military insisted on it. In the end, both cities were still captured by the Russians after several months of urban combat. In both Severodonetsk and Bakhmut, the Ukrainian forces suffered heavy losses, as did the Russians. But the Russians in Bakhmut mainly used prisoners for the assault, who no one would particularly mourn, while the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost personnel from the regular army.
We do not know what role Zaluzhny played in the fact that the 12th Brigade of the National Guard, which included “Azov,” and the 36th Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine remained in complete encirclement in Mariupol. Denys Prokopenko, after returning from Russian captivity, did not give any interviews that could clarify this situation. It can only be assumed that in the conversation between Prokopenko and Zaluzhny, the “Azov” commander assured that his unit was ready to defend the city and that it was not necessary to retreat from Mariupol. The bravado and adventurism of Denys Prokopenko became precisely the key factor that did not allow Zaluzhny and Zelensky to make the only correct decision to retreat from the city.
Against the backdrop of the catastrophe caused by the barbaric shelling of the city by the Russians, Prokopenko decided to present his version of events. According to him, the decision to stay in complete encirclement was justified because, in this way, Ukrainian forces attracted a large group of enemy forces to themselves, thus weakening the pressure on the Armed Forces of Ukraine in other directions.
The outcome of the defense of Mariupol is hard to call successful. 20,000 dead civilians. Out of approximately 5,000 Ukrainian military personnel, half died, and the other half were captured. On the plus side: at least 4,000 dead Russian military personnel, including two generals.