Escape from Mariupol: ‘We could be killed at home or on the road – it was 50/50’

After Ukraine drove Russian-led militia out of Mariupol in 2014, Serhiy Rzhavskyi saw his hometown develop and grow in importance as an industrial port on the Azov Sea, an investment hub for the divided Donbas region and a budget holiday destination for a country that was robbed of balmy Crimea by the Kremlin's annexation of that same year.

“Mariupol felt like the capital of Ukrainian-controlled Donbas,” says Rzhavskyi, who ran a menswear store in a city that was home to about 400,000 people.

“It was one of the nicest cities in the region and its prospects were bright. Things had been getting much better, investment was growing and lots of interesting projects were appearing.”

That ended in the early hours of February 24th, when Russia launched all-out war on Ukraine and Mariupol became a priority target for a powerful invasion force armed with tanks, artillery, missiles systems, attack aircraft and warships.

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“We thought the conflict [with Russian-led separatists] was frozen and at some point it would flare up. But never for a second did we think it would be something on this scale. We had a peaceful life and never imagined this could happen,” says Rzhavskyi (29).

In an apartment with his wife Katya, his mother and her husband Yura and his grandmother, he saw his hometown come under relentless bombardment that would reduce much of it to ruins; local officials say more than 20,000 Mariupol residents have been killed, and accuse Russian troops of burying thousands of bodies in mass graves near the city to hide war crimes.

“By early March we had no electricity and then water and gas supply stopped, and mobile and internet connections vanished. By then it was already dangerous to try to leave the city,” Rzhavskyi recalls.

“Sometimes it was well below zero outside and in our apartment it was two or three degrees. We slept in hats and coats and trousers. We all got ill, including my grandma. She can’t see anything and it was really hard for her. She lived through the second World War and now she has to live through this,” he says.

“People melted snow for water, and some drank water from radiators and boilers. We cut trees and cooked in the yard of our apartment building,” he adds, scrolling through photographs on his phone of his family, dressed in thick winter clothes, standing around a meagre fire.

“A shell landed in the next-door yard but the building where we were somehow survived. My own flat and my wife’s flat were set on fire and some apartment blocks collapsed,” says Rzhavskyi.

“The shelling was almost constant. We’d manage to sleep for maybe 30 minutes at a stretch, and the rest of the time we were running from the flat to the corridor [away from windows that could shatter] and down into the basement to try to not get killed.”

Bodies in the street

Rzhavskyi says his family was fortunate to have some supplies in the flat when the war began, but eventually he had to venture out into the almost-deserted streets, echoing with the roar and boom of shelling, to find food.

“Some humanitarian aid arrived from [government-controlled] Zaporizhzhia. So three of us ran about a kilometre to the place where they were giving it out. There were bodies lying in the street without arms and legs. There was shelling but we made it,” he says.

“I was given a bag of flour, a loaf of bread, a few chocolates and some condensed milk. I ran home and we mixed flour, salt and water and made ‘lepyoshka’ [a kind of simple flat bread]. That was all we could cook, but in those circumstances it was the best.”

By March 11th, more than a fortnight into the war, the family had decided to try to make a break for it and leave Mariupol.

“We could be killed at home or on the road – it was 50/50,” Rzhavskyi says.

“My stepdad Yura – he was a real father to me – decided to go back to his place to get some things before we left. He went off on his bicycle and never came back. He was hit by shrapnel and killed. We were given the news by friends who saw his body.”

On March 14th, Rzhavskyi and his family drove out of Mariupol and passed through “something like 25 Russian checkpoints” before reaching safety in Zaporizhzhia.

“We were lucky that we got out and the Russians didn’t touch us. But we lost Yura and many friends and acquaintances have also been killed. I fear that when we get a clear picture of what’s happened, we’ll be in shock at how many people we will never see again.”

Now Rzhavskyi is in Odesa, a government-controlled city 600km west of Mariupol.

He explains that many displaced Ukrainians are coming to Odesa because life is more affordable here than in western cities such as Lviv, where the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people has driven up the price of accommodation.

“We feel safe here in Odesa and we’ve received such a warm and generous welcome,” he says in the headquarters of the Side-by-Side fund, where he is now one of dozens of volunteers helping other people affected by the war.

“One thing I often notice when talking to people from Mariupol, is the strange things we took with us from home. I left with a spade and two gas cylinders. We took candles and matches – things for basic survival,” he says, delving into a pocket for his passport, which is still wrapped in plastic and secured with a rubber band “to stop it getting ruined.”

“Everything that happened left a psychological mark on all of us. We will never forget and never forgive,” he adds.

“There is another thing that I notice people from Mariupol share,” Rzhavskyi says. “We all want to go back and rebuild our Ukrainian Mariupol, so that it will be even better than it was before the Russians invaded.”