The occupiers completely demolished the Mariupol Drama Theater, previously destroyed by Russian troops while people were hiding in it.
– This is all that is left of the Mariupol Drama Theater, where hundreds of civilians were killed as a result of the occupiers’ targeted barbaric bombing, – the statement said.
The Ministry of Defence added that the Russian invaders might destroy the crime scene, but the war criminals will not escape punishment.
Various human rights activists and law enforcement officials have repeatedly stated that dismantling the theater implies that Russia will destroy evidence of a war crime.
Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol, wrote that the occupiers had completely demolished the theater.
– The drama theater has been completely dismantled. Only the front walls remain. With a high degree of probability, they will simply collapse on their own, and the occupiers will throw up their hands. The final point has been made. A house with a clock. Just a pile of construction waste. Abandoned without being cleared. The real “reconstruction” by the occupiers is the transformation of everything into ashes and garbage, – he wrote.
At the end of December last year, it became known that the Russians who occupied Mariupol began dismantling the destroyed building of the drama theater.
By the evening of December 22, half of the former drama theater was gone. On December 23, Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol, wrote that the invaders intended to demolish the back and central parts of the theater.
The bombing of the Drama Theater in Mariupol, the Donetsk region, was one of the most brutal crimes the Russian occupation army committed during the battle for the city. The Russian occupiers dropped a bomb on the building from an airplane on March 16.
During the attack by Russian bombers, there was a large inscription “CHILDREN” in front of the building, as the city’s civilian population was hiding in the theater. According to various sources, several hundred people were killed.
Already in August last year, the Russian occupation forces tried to hide the corpse smell on the remains of the drama theater with chlorine, and the bodies of the dead were covered with concrete.
Sources: Andriushchenko Time, Ministry of Defence
Photo: Stratcom of the Armed Forces of Ukraine