Ukraine accuses Russian forces of demolishing it to cover up ‘war crimes’
Russian forces have begun demolishing the ruins of the Mariupol theater, a building that was transformed from a place of culture into one of the bloodiest episodes of the war in Ukraine.
The Russian military bombed it last March, killing hundreds of people who had taken refuge inside, according to an aide to the city’s exiled Ukrainian mayor.
An Amnesty International investigation into the Mariupol theater strike concluded that Russian forces committed a war crime by deliberately targeting the building, despite knowing that hundreds of civilians were inside and using it as a shelter.
Video posted on social media appears to show excavators tearing down the last remaining walls of the theater.
Drama Theater in Mariupol no longer exists. This is an attempt to hide forever the evidence of the deliberate killing of Ukrainians by Russians. The aggressor-country doesn’t even try to hide its intentions to erase everything 🇺🇦No amount of lies can help escape justice @UNESCO pic.twitter.com/iM7GjWsNAz
— Tkachenko Oleksandr (@otkachenkoua) December 23, 2022
Ukraine’s culture minister, Tkachenko Oleksandr, said Russian forces demolished the building in an “attempt to forever hide the evidence of the deliberate killing of Ukrainians by Russians.”
The Russian occupation authorities planned to leave the front of the theater intact and destroy the rest of the structure to build a new theater dedicated “to the bones of the people of Mariupol,” said Petro Andryushenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor.
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