Mariupol aftermath 2

Mariupol has been without water, gas, communications and electricity for about three months. All that was taken out early in the war, sometime around the beginning of March. There are still about 100,000+ people (estimated) living in and around the city who have been making do, somehow, without these basic elements of contemporary life. Now that the Russians are running the show, they are trying to get those utilities up and running again, but have made some really dumb mistakes in the process.

Apparently, they figured that all they really needed to do was put some water into the system and everything would work. So they connected up a feed and turned it all on. This ended up flooding streets and basements with untreated and undrinkable water so it was pretty much a failure all around:

Despite the Keystone Kops-like nature of this failure, the lack of water and sanitation are widely expected to lead to an outbreak of cholera in the coming months. I’ve already read some speculation that the Russians would then use the outbreak as “proof” that the US and Ukrainians were using chemical weapons.

As was noted in one of the above articles, you actually need to have the electricity working before the water, because you need the electricity to run the pumping and water treatment stations. (They also need to fix the piping, but what’s good piping if you don’t have good water to put in them?) However, the Russian’s attempts to get the electricity going haven’t fared much better than their plumbing efforts: Apartments are burning in Mariupol due to the attempts of the occupiers to restore power supply – PHOTOS, VIDEO – 0629.com.ua.

(I have to say that I do rather like the snark that many of these local news stories get written with. Clearly the people running the city website are not fans of the occupation.)

The looting of Ukraine continues. There’s been stories about massive amounts of grain being stolen by the Russians. From the Kherson region, I saw a story about farm equipment being stolen as well. (Some of the farmers were able to remotely disable their tractors and combines, which makes me happy.) But even in Mariupol — a city that the Russians bombed to rubble as a way to “liberate” its citizens — the Russians are still finding stuff to steal. Some of the occupation efforts are to fix up — or at least clean up enough of — the port to allow ships to be loaded with loot – In Mariupol, the invaders are trying to resume the work of the port in order to take out the loot, – PHOTOS – 0629.com.ua. In addition to potential grain exports, they also want to take the previously finished steel products from Azovstal – In mariupol port, Russian invaders want to take out stolen metal on stolen ships – 0629.com.ua. Basically, if it wasn’t nailed down before and hasn’t yet been blown up, the Russians will try to take it.

There are very limited plans of rebuilding Mariupol. There are not any plans to restore the city to its pre-war status, only the bare minimums. Some schools, maybe a hospital, definitely administration buildings and housing for military, but that’s it. You say your house was destroyed by Russian shelling? Well, here are a few brinks — fix it yourself. The invaders already want Mariupol residents to repair damaged housing on their own – 0629.com.ua and Imitation of a peaceful life. In Mariupol, the occupiers plan to restore the drama theater and hospitals – 0629.com.ua.

This is not really a surprise. Russian forces and “separatists” took over the city of Donetsk eight years ago, and there is still un-repaired damage from that. I’m not even talking about the airport (which had been newly built in 2012, and was utterly destroyed in the 2014 conflict); there are buildings in downtown Donetsk that still have boards and plastic covering broken windows. (Sorry, I don’t have an article to cite, but this was an eye-witness account by Baba Katya during her visit there a few weeks ago.)

More bodies continue to be found, which makes the estimates of 20,000-22,000 killed during the siege of Mariupol more likely. (About 70 bodies found in former Oktiabr plant territory in Mariupol – ukrinform.net). Additionally, the unexploded ordnance around the city will continue to increase the death toll — Russian shelling is the gift that keeps on giving – A child died near the school in Mariupol – 0629.com.ua.

I’ll have to find something that I can link to or translate, but I’ve seen a couple Telegram posts today about at least one Mariupol story that appeared in a Russian newspaper. In it, the Russian military was lauded for taking Mariupol with only limited damage. It is such a crock it boggles the minds. Here’s a video from someone driving near and around the city center of Mariupol (it’s kind of long, about 4 minutes). It’s been reported that 90+% of the buildings in Mariupol had been damaged (over half of that beyond repair), and from the video, I don’t think I saw a single place without some sort of damage. So, yeah, “limited damage.”

Two comments about the video. One, toward the end you can see the area around the Drama Theater/Opera House. Mostly the camera is looking across the street, but that is where the video ends up, so you have a frame of reference. Two, there are actually a lot of bicycles in the video, especially for a destroyed and occupied city. I saw almost no one on bikes when I first visited Mariupol. They had grown in popularity since then and people saw that as proof that they were truly becoming a modern, European city (think Amsterdam). It would be nice if the rebuilt, Ukrainian Mariupol went all-in on bikes; I think that would be nice.