The mood in Mariupol has “changed dramatically”, according to residents who thought Russia would stay forever but are now expecting a swift Ukrainian military offensive to recapture the city.
In a series of anonymous interviews with the Guardian, people said Mariupol had been transformed into a gloomy version of the Soviet Union since the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in the Azovstal steelworks surrendered to Russian troops a year ago.
“I feel as if I’ve fallen into some terrible submerged and downtrodden collective farm. The shops are primitive and the prices astronomical,” one said. “The city isn’t the one I knew. The people are not the same. Everything is changed. I have a permanent feeling of wanting to go home.”
They said Russian flags flew above municipal buildings, soldiers were visible on the streets, and portraits of Vladimir Putin and the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, hung on the walls of offices and schools.
The occupying authorities pulled down more than 300 blocks of flats which were destroyed when Russian forces besieged and pulverised the city. The centre was now an “empty wasteland”, a resident said. “To me it looks awful. There are craters. Everything is mutilated.”
Flats had been given to collaborators. A few five-storey residential buildings had been repaired, with electricity, gas and other services mostly restored.
Some residents were clinging on in ruined nine-storey blocks scheduled for demolition, without heating or light. Others had been forced to move into crowded dormitories, where husbands and wives were separated and placed in same-sex rooms. “The conditions in hostels are bad. People don’t want to leave their properties because they are worried about looting,” one person said.
Mariupol was once a flourishing European metropolis and port on the Sea of Azov, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. It was home to 480,000 people. In 2014, Moscow and its armed proxies briefly seized the city. The previous frontline was nine miles (15km) from the centre, across a landscape of wrecked seaside villages.
On the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, public opinion in Mariupol was split 50/50 between those who backed Kyiv, and those who sympathised with Putin, current and former residents said. In spring 2022 around half of the city’s population escaped, to Ukrainian government-controlled areas and European countries.
Residents claimed the death toll in the city was 100,000-120,000 – a figure significantly higher than the official toll of 21,000 given by Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government. One person said 25% to 30% of their friends and acquaintances had perished.
About 120,000 of Mariupol’s original inhabitants survived and still live in the city. Of those, about 20% supported Ukraine’s armed forces and were waiting for liberation, a resident said. “I think it’s necessary to hang on,” the person explained. The other 80% were divided equally between people who were indifferent to politics, and those who supported Russia and the city’s new administration.
“This last group are now the majority,” a resident said. “They are very afraid of the counteroffensive.” They continued: “The mood in Mariupol has changed dramatically. A year ago everybody thought that Russia would win. There was no other scenario. Now even those who back Putin realise something is going on, and that Russia might actually lose.
“They are afraid there will be a battle. They understood that when the territory becomes Ukrainian again they are finished. They will have to leave their homes and go to Russia forever.”
Residents estimated about 50,000 Russians had relocated to Mariupol, from Moscow, St Petersburg, Samara and other cities. “These incomers don’t have any idea of what happened. They watch propaganda on TV and think we were rescued from neo-Nazis,” one person said.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin was indoctrinating young people in the city. Schools and kindergartens had reopened under a Russian curriculum and the Ukrainian language had been banned. “The brainwashing is very strong,” one person said. “Children are told Russia’s president is the best, and Ukraine is full of bad people and fascists. It’s like the USSR. There are alien slogans. Only maths and physics are unchanged.”
Natalya Dedova, a Mariupol journalist whose husband, Viktor, a TV camera operator, was killed by Russian shelling, said independent Ukrainian channels had been closed down. A new station, M24, broadcast pro-Moscow news, she said. Some of her husband’s former colleagues had gone to work for Russian media. “I was shocked. They are people of great ambition and little talent,” she said.
A year after Russia’s takeover there were few signs of Ukrainian partisan activity, residents acknowledged. “I have not come across it. People are arrested and tortured and taken away,” one current resident said. Leaving the city was only possible via Russia – an expensive and risky journey. Russia’s FSB spy agency screened anyone who tried to exit, checking phones for signs of pro-Ukrainian activity.
“If they discover anything they will keep you. It’s not unusual for the FSB to interrogate people for eight, 10, even 16 hours,” one resident said, adding that they had remained in Mariupol to care for their elderly grandparents, after their father was killed during Russia’s blockade. “To stay or go is a very painful question. I have a family. I can’t leave them.”
A majority had accepted Russian passports. Without one it was impossible to get a pension, access medical services or even buy or sell a car, residents said. The elderly received a pension of 10,000 rubles (£100) a month. “We live frugally. Bread, water, a bit of sausage. That’s it. We can’t afford luxuries,” a resident said.
In March, Putin appeared to visit Mariupol, driving through the city at night. He passed landmarks, including the theatre where a Russian airstrike killed up to 600 people, many of them children. Asked if they had seen Putin, one resident replied: “No. Just read what Russian bloggers posted.” They added: “It was a show, election campaigning, like always.”
It remains to be seen if Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive can reach Mariupol. The city is just 35 miles from the Russian border, 460 miles from Kyiv, and far from the current frontline. Meanwhile, around 2,000 out of 2,500 Azovstal defenders remain in Russian captivity a year after they were taken prisoner. Five hundred have been swapped for Russian prisoners and released.
If Kyiv does retake Mariupol, the city will require a massive programme of reconstruction and development. Dedova – who fled with her son, after her husband was killed on 11 March 2022 – said its recapture would be “the cherry on the cake”. But she cautioned: “It will be the last place we free. The Russians destroyed everything. So many people died. It will be like Chornobyl, a place of ghosts.”
One current resident said they recently visited Mariupol’s beach, once a popular recreation zone where families and couples would swim and relax in summer, next to the waves and marina. “I went with my sister. Nobody was there. It was completely empty. Everyone is afraid there could be grenades or mines. On one hand it was terrible, on the other, cool to be on our own. I felt like crying.”
