Mariupol, One Year After The Devastating Russian Siege

This was the scene outside a Mariupol maternity hospital on March 9, 2022, after a Russian air strike devastated the facility, killing at least four people and leading to one stillbirth.

At the time, Mariupol had just been completely encircled by Russian forces and would become the scene of some of the invasion’s most devastating destruction as the invading forces closed in and eventually captured the coastal Ukrainian city.

This photo of burned-out railway cars on Mariupol’s main beach, and a partly frozen Sea of Azov, was taken on February 25, 2023.

Children pass shrapnel-scarred buildings in Mariupol on February 25, 2023. Thousands of civilians were killed during the Russian siege. Russia claims 3,000 civilians were killed, while Kyiv claims that more than 25,000 died.

An excavator demolishes a ruined apartment block in Mariupol on February 15, 2023. This photo and the following six images made by photographer Alexander Ermochenko were taken between early to mid-February 2023 but were released by Reuters on February 22.

Gravediggers ride with coffins being transported to a cemetery on the outskirts of Mariupol.

The bodies of civilians were reportedly being discovered in the rubble of buildings long after the Russian siege had ended. Many civilians sheltered from the fighting in the basements of apartment blocks.

The ruined Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater, which was bombed on March 16, 2022, reportedly killing hundreds of civilians sheltering inside. Today, the ruined building is screened off by a tall fence decorated with images of Russian writers.
 

People shop at a makeshift market in Mariupol. 

The stele of Mariupol, painted in the colors of the Russian flag. The monument was previously painted in the blue and yellow of Ukraine.  
 

A new building in front of a war-ruined apartment block.

Anti-Kremlin activist Aleksei Navalny’s investigative team has alleged that top Russian officials are profiting personally from reconstruction projects under way in Mariupol.
 

Workers at the site of a construction project in Mariupol.

According to the UN, up to 90 percent of the city's residential buildings were damaged or destroyed during the Russian siege. 

On March 6, 2023, the Kremlin released photos of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reportedly touring a medical center built by the Russian military in Mariupol, as the rest of the city remains largely in ruins. The date of Shoigu's visit was not specified.

A billboard featuring Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov (left), Russian President Vladimir Putin (center), and Denis Pushilin, the administrator of Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, in front of a memorial in Mariupol on February 16, 2023.

The UN report estimates that some 350,000 people were forced to leave the city from a total population of approximately 450,000 before the war.