Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-descends-into-despair-708cb8f4a171ce3f1c1b0b8d090e38e3

by gmays • 4 years ago

261 219 4 years ago

tiku• 4 years ago

The side by side satellite images really show you the devastating effect of the Russian bombings. It looks like a hurricane or tsunami hit the land. How is this handled after the war, the aggressor should pay for the damages but we can't really force them.

tomjen3• 4 years ago

We should pay them out the siezed Russian assets. That won't be enough, but it will be a start.

gruez21• 4 years ago

What "siezed Russian assets" are we talking about here? The russian centeral bank deposits held with the federal reserve? Foreign assets of russian companies? Assets of russian "oligarchs"?

bitL• 4 years ago

You are assuming this city will remain in Ukraine. That might be too optimistic as this is the only part of the coast on the land bridge to Crimea that is not yet under Russian control.

gruez21• 4 years ago

The side by side satellite images really show you the devastating effect of the Russian bombings

Where are those? I skimmed the link article and couldn't find any.

lacksconfidence• 4 years ago

One example i saw a few days ago at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/10/mariupol-bombi...

ramesh31• 4 years ago

How is this handled after the war, the aggressor should pay for the damages but we can't really force them.

Sure we can. Germany was paying WWII reparations into the 90's.

scotty7913• 4 years ago

Sure, but the Germany was conquered. And noone is eager to start conquering Russia.

MrRiddle• 4 years ago

Germany killed 18% of the population of my country. What price would you place on that?

myth_drannon• 4 years ago

Here are some other views of destruction on Mariupol streets :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqkJUZZpH6M (skip to the end)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEdlINn2uA0

Warning that some of the videos and the account appears to be pro-russian(?).

sorokod7• 4 years ago

The YouTube channel associated with the first link is not "pro Russian", it is 100% Russian propaganda

sorokod7• 4 years ago

Don't have words but it feels wrong not to have any here so

awful, awful, awful...

AnimalMuppet3• 4 years ago

I have some words about Putin that I really want to say. They're against the site guidelines, though, so I am restraining myself. He sure doesn't make it easy...

jdrc3• 4 years ago

The situation in that city is beyond description. The international community should really pay attention

https://mobile.twitter.com/christogrozev/status/150421396163...

AnimalMuppet3• 4 years ago

I don't think the international community is not paying attention. "Unwilling to go to direct war against Russia" is not the same as ignoring it.

Giorgi6• 4 years ago

Unwilling to go to direct war against Russia by ignoring it.

thow161613• 4 years ago

It works out to approximately the same thing in terms of the outcome of the invasion.

yyyk7• 4 years ago

There's much more the international community could do even without direct war. It should be possible to station troops in the West of country, thus freeing up Ukrainians to fight. If Putin wishes to attack them, than he'll be the one escalating.

It would be not too different than Idlib, which hasn't led to massive war, with the exception the government will have invited these troops.

rasz4• 4 years ago

"Unwilling to go to direct war against Putin" means Putin can nibble at Europe one country at a time.

"cant risk WW3 over Ukraine"

"cant risk WW3 over Poland"

"cant risk WW3 over Latvia"

"cant risk WW3 over Estonia"

etc, etc ...

itronitron• 4 years ago

Israel has a team specifically trained in recovering people from destroyed buildings. Hopefully they can send their team to Mariupol >> https://eu.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2021/07/26/surfside-...

jdrc3• 4 years ago

The city is surrounded and cut off from electric/water

mzs• 4 years ago

"50 to 100 air bombs come to the city every day." I'm not certain conditions are appropriate.

https://twitter.com/KSergatskova/status/1504782169188806664

hckrnrd3• 4 years ago

Israaid, an NGO providing humanitarian aid, is already providing relief services. » https://www.israel21c.org/israaid-ceo-ukraine-crisis-is-the-...

thow161613• 4 years ago

Looking at these photos, I think we (NATO) should intervene with troops and air support. For all the cries of "never again", we just sit on our hands and watch a Hitler like dictator destroy a neighboring country in a territorial war. Its clear Russia's army is a paper tiger, and I doubt Putin has the balls to use nukes.

true_religion• 4 years ago

Hitler is reviled for the Holocaust, not merely invading another country in a war of conquest. This whole situation is depressing and frustrating all around, but I don’t think anyone is being hypocritical.

yks2• 4 years ago

War of conquest became taboo after WW2, written down in the UN chapter. The concept of "crimes against peace" itself was ironically invented by Soviets.

thow161613• 4 years ago

I was specifically referring to Hitler's territorial expansion prior to WWII.

Putin's expansion into Crimea and Ukraine reminds me very much of Hitler's expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia. Its my firm belief that we're at the "Peace in our time" phase, just before WWIII, and it would be better to nip it in the bud and take action now, rather than 2 years from now, when Putin has had more time to prepare, and he attempts to invade a country that we are obligated by treaty to defend.

qsdf38100• 4 years ago

We might well be in 1939, when hitler had not yet done the holocaust. The comparison seems fair to me. Who knows what Putin would be capable of if he kept on going full tyrant for another 3 years…

yyyk7• 4 years ago

The allies fought Germany because they had no choice - the Nazis basically declared war on the world. Yet the Holocaust is very much a post-facto justification. At the time, the allies did nothing to impede the Holocaust, and it played very little part in their justifications (just watch 'Why we fight' and check where it's mentioned - nowhere).

Only after WW2 the allies decided to remember the Holocaust existed, and justice still played a second fiddle to interests.

xdennis4• 4 years ago

Hitler was reviled for everything he did, not just the Holocaust. The Allies didn't even know about the true extent of the Holocaust until they started liberating concentration camps in 1945.

gruez21• 4 years ago

I doubt Putin has the balls to use nukes.

That's a very bold claim to make. What is that based on?

Giorgi6• 4 years ago

It is based on Turkey shooting down Russian jet without any consequences.

yks2• 4 years ago

He does not have balls to sit close to his top generals and cronies.

baq• 4 years ago

He is rational, just misinformed. Dude is scared shitless of losing and he knows he can’t win this game. He will pretend he’s willing to though, because it works.

throw7576521• 4 years ago

Gladly its not you to decide that, as sad as the situation is. And also as sad as it is, the Hitler comparison is still inappropriate in both directions, please refrain for dignity.

maxlamb4• 4 years ago

I think OP is referring to 1939 Hitler, i.e. invaded countries and clearly doesn’t care about killing civilians, but before the Holocaust. It’s clear from the last couple of weeks that Putin doesn’t even flinch at the thought of killing thousands of innocent civilians just to satisfy his own twisted reality.

feoren2• 4 years ago

Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and the international community did essentially nothing about it. It both emboldened him for further invasions, and provided him a huge manufacturing power to pump out tanks and armaments. If the international community said "Hell no, we're defending Czechoslovakia on principle because that invasion is BS", they would have fought a much weaker Germany and very likely prevented WWII (or at least one nearly as bad). Frankly I don't see how you can argue that's not an extremely apt comparison.

andrewflnr3• 4 years ago

"Balls" have little to do with it. It looks to me like the invasion of Ukraine was the act of a desperate old man whose time is running out to achieve his ambitions, and a mistake based on wishful thinking rather than a sober assessment of relative military capability and popular sentiment of the two countries. This is not a man you can trust to be rational. We should assume he will continue to act out of pride and delusion. If he thinks he doesn't have anything left to lose, we should assume nukes are on the table.

maxlamb4• 4 years ago

Unfortunately with that logic then we will never push back against Russia. Putin invades Poland? “Oh we shouldn’t attack because Putin is irrational and might use Nukes, we’ll try appeasement first.” This interview with exiled Russian M. Khodorkovski (who used to be the richest guy in Russia until Putin jailed him for 10 years) is pretty convincing that this fear makes the “West” look weak to Putin and he’ll keep pushing until he’s stopped. https://youtu.be/OX6ISz0FotU

Giorgi6• 4 years ago

Russians will be deemed worse than ISIS for history books. All the suffering they caused to their neighbors, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia. Millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands killed, families destroyed, hopes and dreams perished - all for Russian people imperialist ideology.

I hope to some day see Russian federation dissolved into it's federal states.

lostmsu• 4 years ago

Just to correct, the death toll in this conflict is believed to be around 15k so far.

bpodgursky• 4 years ago

That is a very low estimate, given how hard it has been to count civilian deaths in Mariupol.

hckrnrd3• 4 years ago

Given the authoritarian nature of country, conflating “Russians” with Putin may be detrimental toward reconciliation.

xdennis4• 4 years ago

You know the west is weak when we're thinking about reconciliation when they're still bombing civilians. Do you think Russians are stopping to think whether killing pregnant women is bad for reconciliation?

zoomablemind2• 4 years ago

"...Ukrainian television and radio were cut, and car stereos became the only link to the outside world. They played Russian news, describing a world that couldn’t be further from the reality in Mariupol."

As much as the whole world wants to believe that the people of the Russian Federation are uninformed, or disallowed the information, and disinformed by the propaganda...the grim reality seems that they rather need to believe that propaganda, because it seemingly absolves them of the resposibility for these atrocities

The simple folks of Russia are very much familiar with the horrors and the scale of such war atrocities as from the vast WW2 history, just as from Grozny and Aleppo times. They get how cruel and mindless this is. Just they cannot admit to themselves and their children that this time they are the aggressor side.

It must be the same kind of "fear of blame" that is not that different from decades of Stalin's rule. For many citizens of the Russian Federation, it's the only place to live their lives, there's no exit, not much choice for change. The fear has simply transformed the reality, just as it has done it in times before...

I have no hopes that these folks would suddenly "wake up to truth". Nor that they would attain to any collective remorse for this. Perhaps this fear could only be supplanted by their personal grief.

The Russian country seems to have turned into a Federation of Fear - the main product that its rulers now want to export to the rest of the world. It's the grief that the world is already harvesting.

jdrc3• 4 years ago

It's no use to blame Putin's subjects for all this. They did not push for this war. They were as surprised as anyone from the invasion, but of course they will support their army now because they have spent a decade learning to hate the west and blame it for every evil[1].

But putin also calculated (correctly) that the west wouldn't react strongly , like it didnt react with syria, georgia, karabakh, libya. Invading weak countries to make a victory lap is how he legitimizes himself to his subjects and to the nearby dictators (like aliyev). This was made worse by watching how afghanistan ended, and how the US is quickly shifting to the Pacific. The US needs to set a red line to stop him, that is the only thing that delegitimizes him

1.https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_how_russia_has_come_to_lo...

packet_nerd3• 4 years ago

I've been text messaging with random Russians a bunch over the last couple weeks and have had conversations with ~100 people, some of them quite extensive. Not once has anyone really condemned the war. A few are cynical about their government, people, and the rest of the world, and sad that this has to happen. But the vast majority weren't even that. Just straight up nationalist, repeatedly saying that they had to do something or they would be destroyed by the west. And insisting that Ukraine belonged to Russia. Absolutely no-one denied the facts as far as the toll on human life or the destruction of Ukraine, and not a single person thought its a "special operation" instead of a war. I heard a lot of what seems to me to be extreme paranoia about NATO, America, and Nazis just waiting for an opportunity to invade and destroy them.

The whole experience has been kind of shocking to me. I went into this believing that Russians where like innocent captives of evil politicians and oligarchs and had no idea what was going on. But based on the conversations I've had, that is not the case at all. They know exactly what is going on as far as the cost in human lives, and believe it's necessary to ensure their own survival.

sorokod7• 4 years ago

They know exactly what is going on as far as the cost in human lives

Do they? Do they know how many Russians have been killed so far?

Moru• 4 years ago

I think you need to watch this one[0], it's an explanation of what you are seeing. In general, that is the propaganda doing it's job. It's similar to all countries, we all have our propaganda and our view of our situation in the world. Russias is the classical "It's us against them! And we are surrounded by our enemies!". I'm sure North Korea is about the same only worse.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw

AnimalMuppet3• 4 years ago

You know, if I lived in Russia right now, and some random person I never heard of started texting me and talking about the war, I'd at least have to consider the possibility that they were FSB, and guard my words accordingly.

Not saying that all the people you texted thought that way, but I'm not sure you can reach a definitive conclusion based on your experiment.

zoomablemind2• 4 years ago

...They know exactly what is going on as far as the cost in human lives, and believe it's necessary to ensure their own survival.

Given the propaganda and the extensive coverups by govt, it's not really clear what exactly the people know in terms of counts, but for sure the scale of the war is hard to cover up by now.

However, knowing the actual facts is rather irrelevant for them. The pervious decades of "raising from their knees" in fact gave even more rise to the cynicism - another product of the "developed socialism".

Thus lots of educated citizens of Russia would readily accept and justify any form of twisted falsehood as a given, kind of rules of engagement for their daily act of survival.

Sadly, similar cyncism seems to have its place in lives of may people from the former Soviet republics, Ukraine included. Just in Ukraine, there happened to be a practical succession of government and presidents. This has been powering a hope for changes, better future, access to Europe. Meanwhile, the Russian Federation got clearly stuck "in-progress", same as Belarus, and the Central Asian republics. Sans alternative.

How does one reconcile with such a reality? Well, if unable to leave, then adopting some cynical attitude to anything may perhaps become a choice.

sorokod7• 4 years ago

Material for future crimes against humanity trials, the leadership (aka management) page of the Russian MoD

https://eng.mil.ru/en/management.htm

scotty7913• 4 years ago

I have no idea why anyone still talks to Putin.

UN should just demand from Russian system of power that they delivered suspected war criminal mr Putin to Hague if they want to have any hope of Russia rejoining global economy any time soon.

filoleg• 4 years ago

UN should just demand from Russian system of power that they delivered suspected war criminal mr Putin

I don't know if your proposal was supposed to be realistic, but it is just idealistically naive at best. Putin is the Russian system of power. Unless you believe that he is going to willingly turn himself in as soon as the UN makes that demand, I don't see any good coming out of such demand by the UN.

Also, don't forget that Russia is one of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, and there is nothing stopping them from vetoing any such statement from being made in the first place (which is one of the major perks of being the permanent member).

neurostimulant• 4 years ago

That page has been deleted. Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220204230556/https://eng.mil.r...

feoren2• 4 years ago

Does anyone else have a problem with the phrase "war's toll"? It sounds like it's uttered by a tight-lipped posh British man talking over grainy black-and-white footage. Can we call it "Human beings choosing to just fucking outright murder innocent civilians for no fucking reason ...'s toll"? These are humans who have decided to commit war crimes and what is essentially genocide. It's not like "oh, man, war just happens, and it really sucks for the people it happens to." No, war doesn't just happen randomly -- these humans are choosing to do this. It's not "war's toll". It's murder.

scotty7913• 4 years ago

I completely agree with you. Many small wars that happened since world war II caused the journalist to develop sort of usual war reporing routine and language.

And they are applying by default the same routine to this teritorial invasion of 40mln pro-european country and very probable start of world war 3. It's infuriating that this language muddles the uniqueness of this event and lulls so many people into the sense of safe familiarity.

It's not the war that your dad's war was in some remote country 'sadly tragic'.

Barrera• 4 years ago

With each humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, the US comes that much closer to intervening in a direct way. Neither Ukraine nor Russia will capitulate, they're too evenly matched conventionally. So there will be many, many of these events happening in the future.

Already the leadership of certain NATO countries are calling for a no fly zone, and transfer of various weapons systems. It's a simple exercise to ask yourself what humanitarian disaster would be so egregious that the US would be forced to act because if it did not NATO itself would fracture, with newly-added former Soviet republics and eastern block countries acting on their own.

That event is not very far away. Mariupol is a disaster, but it's one that none of us can influence. We can, however, take steps now for the inevitable arrival of exchange of fire between US and Russian forces.

I'm happy to ratchet down that stand, but until something happens with clear de-escalatory potential, the base case needs to be direct US-Russia confrontation and likely nuclear escalation.

Edit: the split in NATO could come quite quickly. A low-yield nuclear first strike by a cornered Russia into Ukraine would put the entire immediate vicinity (the Baltic states, Poland, etc.) on alert that they're next on the list. The pressure on local politicians to act first and receive reprimand from NATO later could be irresistible. The US's "ironclad" commitment to Article 5 does the rest.

ProAm2• 4 years ago

Im honestly surprised they have not intervened directly let. The US invaded Iraq for less. Here is a democratic country needlessly invaded, with obvious civilians being targeted and killed. I think the US politicians are too old and still fear their memories of the cold war. War is hell but not helping is merciless.

gambiting6• 4 years ago

The argument was and still is that by "helping" you'd actually cause more devastation(or, at worst - start a nuclear exchange between superpowers).

But like OP said, there has to be a threshold, an attrocity so bad that NATO will be forced to intervene. I personally think seeing 18 month old babies killed by shrapnel is enough - but I'm not in charge of the policy(for better or worse).

scotty7913• 4 years ago

US knew that Iraq didn't really have WMDs and they also know Russia really has WMDs.

scotty7913• 4 years ago

I wonder where UN blue helmets are?

skuhn• 4 years ago

To take the situation to an extreme conclusion:

Why doesn’t Putin just have his army start on the east end of Ukraine and proceed west, killing every single person and destroying every piece of infrastructure in their way?

Anything up to (and perhaps including) that point clearly won’t result in direct intervention, whether due to the fear of nuclear holocaust or for other reasons.

So then why not? If he needs to win at all costs, and he doesn’t care about anything but power, what is holding him back?

Is it because he wants to occupy Ukraine and get its people to contribute to his GDP and their resources to sell? Russia is already devastating Ukraine to such a degree that there will be constant guerrilla fighting as an occupied state and it will take substantial investment to rebuild industry. Russia doesn’t seem to have the people or resources for a long term occupation.

Because there are escalations that can still happen besides direct intervention? The US and EU could do more, but not that much more. China is the only one that can really put the heat on at this point, and they probably do have a limit at which they would.

Or is it because he can’t? Even with the total commitment of all of Russia’s resources, can they not utterly annihilate Ukraine? That seems unlikely (although the cost seems to be far greater than previously believed), although it may require nuclear escalation.

So it seems to me like we’re in a waiting game for Russia’s other trade partners (mostly China) to drop severe sanctions, or for Russia to escalate to nuclear conflict and let that genie out of the bottle, or for Russia to bow out due to lack of resources or regime change.

I think of those options, the most likely is that Russia continues throwing bodies into the Ukrainian meat grinder until they can finally claim a pyrrhic victory. I can’t imagine NATO intervening, no matter how terrible the events, when nukes are on the table.

dh20224• 4 years ago

Another option is Russia coerces Ukraine into accepting the 3 things [1] Russia asked. It can happen. It will be interesting what will the West do if this happens. [1] the three things are: 1. No NATO integration 2. Recognize Crimea as part of Russia 3. Recognize the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine already conceded first item. In time they may concede the rest. [edit - formatting. Sorry, I am new to HN so I do not know how editing works very well.]

rr808• 4 years ago

One of the Ukrainian Twitter feeds I look at lists Russian soldiers Social Media and small town newspaper articles. Its depressing on their side seeing young kids and young fathers coming out of these small rural towns and dying in the army. https://twitter.com/666_mancer. Its interesting to see the translated Russian comments as well.

mempko2• 4 years ago

I understand Russian and have heard interviews from those who evacuated Mariupol. Many are saying Azov isn't letting them leave. A lot of those who evacuated were saved by Russian soldiers under fire from Ukraine. Unfortunately most of this content isn't available to English speaking audiences. I noticed the AP press article above doesn't even mention Azov Battalion which is defending the city. For example, they said the roads are full of mines, but didn't say who placed the mines. How do you have a report about a war in a city without mentioning the defending army? Only mention of a Ukrainian soldier was when one pleaded to people to stop looting. The article also shows a tank blasting an apartment building. I watched another video that showed Russian/Chechen troops fighting Ukrainian soldiers in the top floor of an apartment building in Mariupol. People who lived there were in the basement. In other words, the defending army takes positions on the top floor of these buildings with people huddled in the basement.

This is a complete disaster and we need to give voices to the people who live there. This is a horrendous situation for the people in Mariupol and the people there deserve good reporting. It's clear both sides have blood on their hands and Urban warfare is the worst kind. It should never have led to this.

EDIT: Translated Example of an interview from someone evacuated: https://twitter.com/wyattreed13/status/1504743305967554565?s...

EDIT2: I want to be very clear I am not defending Russia. I do not support this war. I am criticizing the poor reporting and that the truth of what is happening is complex.

cloverich• 4 years ago

“saved by russian soldiers” but does that even make sense given the thing they need saved from is attacks by russian soldiers?

mempko2• 4 years ago

What's even more confusing is when they thank the Russian soldiers. Probably because some percentage of people in Mariupol are pro-russia and some percentage are pro-ukraine. Once you understand this, it becomes less confusing.

Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll

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