Were war crimes in Mariupol hidden by Russia during reconstruction efforts?

The Russian Armed Forces spent months engaged in brutal urban combat as its soldiers tried to capture the city of Mariupol from the last Ukrainian defenders who were holding off the Russian invasion.

A lot of Mariupol was damaged or destroyed in the battles that took place during the combat in the city since Russian soldiers used every weapon in their arsenal to root out the last Ukrainian resistance.

However, even more destruction was dealt to the city after Russian forces seized full control of Mariupol and Moscow began reconstruction efforts, efforts that the city's former mayor claimed intended to hide war crimes.

"For two months… they destroyed every second high-rise building,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko explaiend during an interview with Ukrainform in March 2023. 

Before the invasion of Ukraine, and Mariupol's brutal months-long siege at the hands of Russian forces, the city had 1800 apartment complexes according to Boychenko. 

Boychenko noted that Russia claimed 934 of Mariupol's former apartment complexes were destroyed and he asserted that the remains of those buildings were being cleaned up in order to hide evidence of Russia’s war crimes in the city. 

“They have already removed 400 such buildings,” Boychenko told Ukrainform, adding that the Russians “have hidden their war crimes."

"They work day and night,” Boychenko said, “because they understand that we are already approaching, that we will regain the city, that there will be a counteroffensive.”

"And they prepare for this and clear away their war crimes... it is necessary to understand that 50% of the city no longer exists, unfortunately," Boychenko concluded. 

Deciphering the truth in Boychenko’s claim proved to be difficult. Unkrainform is Ukraine’s national news agency and riling up anger over Mariupol would have been a helpful propaganda tool both domestically and internationally at the time of the report.

However, there was evidence that Russia had been hard at work cleaning up a destroyed Mariupol, and what they fixed and changed spoke volumes about the transformations that were made.

“Russian military convoys are rumbling down the broad avenues of what is swiftly becoming a garrison city,” wrote journalists from the Associated Press in December 2022 reporting on the changes that took place.

“Many of the city’s Ukrainian street names are reverting to Soviet ones, with the Avenue of Peace that cuts through Mariupol to be labeled Lenin Avenue,” the journalists added. 

“Eight months after Mariupol fell into Russian hands, Russia is eradicating all vestiges of Ukraine from it, along with the evidence of war crimes buried in its buildings,” the journalist continued, noting the clean-up efforts at the city’s former Drama Theatre.

The bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre was the site of one of Russia’s most brutal alleged war crimes, and led to the death of roughly 600 civilians. 

Russian forces began cleaning up the wreckage of Mariupol’s Drama Theatre in December and Ukraine's Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko called the move one aimed at hiding Russia’s war crimes in the city. 

"The Mariupol Drama Theater no longer exists,” Tkachenk wrote in a Telegram post. “The occupiers destroy the traces of their crimes, and they absolutely do not care whether it is a cultural monument or a piece of property of another culture.”

While statements about hiding Russian war crimes weren't independently verified, we do know that Russia began cleaning up the ruins of Mariupol’s destroyed apartment complexes in December 2022, around the same time work began on cleaning up the theater. 

Satellite images shared by Maxar Technologies on Twitter and taken on November 30th showed that several damaged buildings in Mariupol were being demolished.

Photo by Twitter @Maxar

“Across the city of Mariupol, dozens of high-rise apartment buildings that were destroyed or heavily damaged in March are now being demolished. Satellite images from November 30, 2022,” Maxar Technologies wrote in their tweet. 

Photo by Twitter @Maxar

Whether or not the razing of destroyed buildings was being done to hide evidence of war crimes isn't something we will know unless Ukraine can recapture Mariupol and investigates. 

However, when it comes to Russian forces in Ukraine, the world shouldn’t be surprised if the accusations leveled against Russia and its leadership by Mariupol's former Ukrainian mayor prove to be true. 

In the wake of Mariupol's cleanup effort, Russian authorities began probing several companies in May 2023 over alleged fraud claims according to The Moscow Times, which noted the Kremlin's efforts to boast about the city's reconstruction. 

"Dozens of companies in Russian-occupied Mariupol have been involved in schemes to avoid paying Value Added Tax (VAT), a source close to the Russian tax authorities told The Moscow Times’ Russian service," the news organization wrote. 

Despite the efforts to return Mariupol to its pre-war status, there are still scars all throughout the city according to The Moscow Times. Citizens are trying to return to a normal life but evidence of the destruction wrought is still all around those who have returned to the once great seaside town.