Warning: This article contains descriptions of graphic scenes. For a moment, Oksana Latanska could not believe her eyes when she looked down at a cold, little body, gray from dust and ashes. It hardly resembled the little boy that she knew so well and whom she saw almost every weekend
Russian occupation authorities in Donetsk jailed nine Ukrainian soldiers captured after defending Mariupol to between 24 years and a life sentence, the city's exiled authorities reported on Dec. 11.
"I spoke incorrectly, so I'm taking back my words," said lawmaker Maksym Tkachenko who serves on a committee focused on human rights and the liberation of occupied territories.
Russia has stolen more than 180,000 tons of Ukrainian grain through the port of the occupied city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast alone, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a government meeting on Oct. 8.
Editor’s Note: This article was published by the twice-weekly newsletter “The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak” on Sept. 28, 2024, and has been re-published by the Kyiv Independent with permission. To subscribe to The Counteroffensive, click here. Vira Lytvynenko hasn’t been able to bury her son since March 2022,
The Russian company Donskoy Ugol Trading House is planning to start exporting coal from the occupied Donbas region through the port of Mariupol, the Russian state-controlled media outlet RBC reported on Sept. 30.
Key developments on Sept. 17: * Around 1 million killed, wounded in Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine, WSJ reports * Ukraine destroys Russian ammunition depots near occupied Mariupol, Navy says * None of Ukraine's plans to end the war envisages ceasefire, ceding territory, Podolyak says * Russia reportedly executes POW with sword, Kyiv appeals
The strike destroyed both the storage infrastructure and tons of ammunition that Russian troops were stockpiling for use against Ukraine, Ukraine's Navy said.
"The vast majority of those released are people who had been held (in captivity) since the first days of the war,” said Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets in a statement.
The transport of Russian military equipment toward Zaporizhzhia Oblast through occupied Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast has "sharply increased," said Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city's exiled mayor, on July 29.
Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city's exiled mayor, shared photos and videos showing plumes of smoke rising over Mariupol. Explosions were heard near a city's airport.
The Atesh partisan group sabotaged a railway connection between Russia's Rostov-on-Don and the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the group said on July 9.
Russia used a "deliberate pattern" of starvation tactics during its three-month siege of the city of Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, in early 2022, which could amount to war crime, according to a lawyers' analysis submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Guardian reported on June 13.
Ukraine returned home an 11-year-old boy who had been separated from his mother in Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast for two years, the Reintegration Ministry reported on May 27.
The defense of the Azovstal steel plant, Ukraine's last stronghold during the Russian siege of Mariupol in the spring of 2022, remains one of the most heroic operations carried out by the Ukrainian soldiers to date. The plant was under constant Russian bombardment for nearly two months, and those stuck
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. While hiding from almost non-stop Russian bombardment in the dark and cold bunkers of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Dmytro Kozatskyi took his most famous and arguably most valuable photographs. He showed the world what it was
Dmytro Kozatskyi, call sign "Orest," is a Ukrainian soldier who formerly headed the press service of the Azov regiment. In this video, Kozatskyi breaks down his famous photographs and shares his memories about the Russian siege of Mariupol.
The Wurzburg Prosecutor's Office has opened a preliminary investigation into the German building materials manufacturer Knauf, allegedly involved in the reconstruction of Russian-occupied Mariupol, Russian state-controlled news outlet RIA Novosti reported on April 22.
The German producer of building materials Knauf said it is ceasing its operations in Russia in the light of "current events," Business Insider reported on April 22, citing a statement from the company.
German companies Knauf and WKB Systems GmbH are involved in the so-called restoration efforts of occupied Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast, which was destroyed by Russian troops, according to an investigation published on April 3 by journalists of the Monitor program of the German TV channel ARD.
The Ukrainian project DE TY is organizing an international awareness campaign on March 16 in the U.S. and Canada to mark the second anniversary of a Russian strike against the Mariupol Drama Theater and draw attention to children suffering due to Russia's war.
The film "20 Days in Mariupol," directed by Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov, won the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 96th Academy Awards on March 10. The documentary records the Russian siege of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast from the perspective of Chernov and his crew during the first weeks of
A Russian court in Rostov-on-Don has handed a 20-year prison sentence in a maximum-security facility to Dmytro Yevhan, a Ukrainian servicemember who was captured defending the Azovstal steelworks plant in Mariupol.
Editor’s Note: This story contains descriptions of graphic scenes. “My brain will desperately want to forget all this,” narrates journalist Mstyslav Chernov over footage he filmed of city workers adding bodies to a mass grave in Mariupol, “but the camera will not let it happen.” At the start of
Russia’s now-10-year war against Ukraine has affected every inch of the country, but no other region has taken the brunt of Russian aggression like Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, comprised of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. While the initial eight years of Russia's invasion only affected a handful of eastern Ukrainian
The Ukrainian documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” won an award for best documentary on Feb. 18 at the British Academy Film Awards.
A report published by Human Rights Watch, Ukrainian human rights organization Truth Hounds, and SITU Research on Feb. 8 identifies 17 military units that took part in Russia's assault on Mariupol at the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A visit by the German ZDF TV channel's correspondent to Russian-occupied Mariupol without Kyiv's consent violated Ukrainian law, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko said on Feb. 2.
After Russia’s relentless attacks in 2022, the port city of Mariupol in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast was left in ruins. Yet this has not stopped Russians from buying up houses and flats in Mariupol, or even trying to exchange them for their property in Russia.
The first Russian bomb hit the outskirts of Mariupol an hour after video journalist Mstyslav Chernov arrived to the city on Feb. 24, the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. For 20 days that followed, Chernov’s team captured Russian blows strangling the city block by block.
Ten months after barely surviving the Russian bombing of a theater in Mariupol, Viktoria Dubovitska is keeping a close eye on her seven-year-old son. Artem remembers “almost everything” about what he saw in the March tragedy, the mother said. He tries not to talk about it, but unwanted memories keep
Editor’s Note: The names of some of the people interviewed by the Kyiv Independent for this story have been changed to protect their identity as they have shared sensitive information that could place them and their families in danger. Three months after Russia’s brutal months-long siege of Mariupol
