In the third year of the occupation of Mariupol, the Russians have beautifully saturated the information field with images of reconstruction. More than 90% of the media content from the occupied city shows happy people, painted facades, and a complete sense of a new era, if not happiness.
However, we systematically demonstrate the entire illusion of reconstruction. Our international partners always ask: “What is the real situation?” This question can be understood pragmatically, because everyone is squeezed between two extremes of positions: pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian. And what about people? Ordinary people who remain under occupation – what do they really feel?
And then, in December 2024-January 2025, there was an unexpected breakthrough of truth and opinion from the first person of Mariupol. Within a short period, 27 video messages from ordinary Mariupol residents addressed to Putin were published online. All with the same description and demand: “Give us our housing”.
It all started with the dismantling of an entire block with a 5 km perimeter in the Livoberezhny district. More than 5,000 people were left homeless in the spring of 2023. Russian tractors and bulldozers turned it into pits. People were promised compensation for their lost property and new housing. Years have passed and people have received nothing.
The only thing that has changed is that their number has grown exponentially. The dismantling of three large residential areas alone has left more than 65,000 Mariupol residents homeless. A third of these people are still under occupation – living with friends and relatives, and sometimes simply squatting in the homes of other evacuated Mariupol residents. And all of them were waiting for the Russian occupation authorities to fulfill their promises.
However, in December 2024, the Russian authorities announced that all compensation programs were closed and would not be funded in the future. That is, people were left homeless, on the street with promises.
Driven to the brink, people took to the streets to protest. Block by block, they recorded appeals to Putin, telling about the reality of Mariupol behind the painted facades of the central streets. About the misery, the loss of home, the awakening and hopelessness.
For the first time, the truth became available to everyone. No bills and almost no propaganda.
As a result, as of today, more than 22 thousand people in Mariupol have neither housing nor hope for compensation. The occupation authorities have dismantled and physically destroyed about 40,000 apartments, providing only 5,000 apartments for replacement. These are figures that clearly demonstrate the reality of the “reconstruction” of Mariupol.
But instead of a conclusion or epilogue. In February, the Russian FSB in Mariupol found every resident who took part in the recording. Even if a person just stood silently, a repressive machine knocked on their door. Everyone was warned that one more video and they would disappear forever in the basements and torture chambers of the FSB. Forever. Therefore, no further public rebellion should be expected. Not because of improvements, but because of repression. Which is also an integral part of life under occupation.
By Petro Andryushchenko
*These opinions are solely those of the author. The Ukrainian Review takes no position and is not responsible for the author’s words.
Petro Andryushchenko was an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol. After the Russian Federation started war in Ukraine in February 2022, he became the de facto “voice” of Mariupol.
On his Telegram channel, “Andryushchenko Time“, he tells the truth about the horrors of the occupation, the deportation of people by the Russian occupants and the “filtration” camps in Donbas.
