It’s not just communication with the outside world that’s been cut off in Mariupol – it’s also water, heating and lighting. Residents of the coastal city in eastern Ukraine - which until last week was relatively well off due to its status as a global shipping hub - are now reduced to collecting rainwater from gutters.
With no boilers, they start fires in their yards to try to warm up; the only news of the war they can glean is from the direction of the shelling nearby. When daylight fades, all they can do is try to sleep, despite the terror and the hunger. Without power, they cannot charge their phones to learn what is going on, or tell anyone they are alive. Their cars have run out of fuel. Rare deliveries of bread and water attract queues, but the humanitarian aid agencies bringing the supplies dare not stop in one place; they would be shelled.
Mariupol and its nearly half a million citizens are under siege.
For five days, buildings including shops, hospitals and schools have been relentlessly pummelled by Russian forces from morning till night.
Mariupol’s deputy mayor, Sergei Orlov, warned a humanitarian crisis was imminent as he told the BBC that Russia was attacking the city indiscriminately, while UK officials on Friday said it had been been encircled by Russian forces.
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Nevertheless, the port on the Azov Sea, home to a sizable population of Greek origin, is a symbol of resistance to Russia’s onslaught.
It is a key strategic target for Vladimir Putin’s army because it has resisted force from the pro-Russian rebels in the nearby regions of Donetsk and Luhansk over the past eight years, and seizing the city now would allow the separatists to join forces with troops in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the Donbas region never ended, with the Kyiv government maintaining its intention of claiming Crimea back.
“8th year of war, 9th day of genocide, 4th day of Mariupol without communication. What is happening in the city right now: There is no light, at all, people in the dark, devices cannot be charged. Because of this there is no water,” Diana Berg, deputy head of the NGO Azov Development Agency, wrote on Facebook.
“I’ve seen people collecting rainwater from the pipes. There is no heating - because the boilers work from electricity. I’ve seen people in the yards making fires to keep warm.”
A destroyed Ukrainian tank in Gnutovo near Mariupol
(Russian Defence Ministry/AFP via)
“This is a humanitarian disaster for the civilian population. This is just a genocide,” Ms Berg wrote.
Other residents – among the few who could get messages out through social media – said Russian forces had also damaged a rail link, destroyed bridges and crushed trains to stop women, children and elderly people being transported out of Mariupol to safety.
Another citizen, Petro Andryushchenko, accused the Russians of disrupting food supplies, setting the city on course for a hunger siege like Leningrad during the Second World War when a million people died.
Some water was being provided through a “car tanker”, he said, and volunteers were doing their best to restore the city’s critical infrastructure, working with international institutions to create a "green corridor" for humanitarian missions.
This map shows the extent of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
(Press Association Images)
Warning people not to bother phoning because calls would not get through, he suggested texting instead, pinning his hopes on Thursday’s agreement between the two countries to create humanitarian corridors.
On Thursday, Mr Andryushchenko wrote of “a hunger for information”, adding: “We will learn this and find each other only when there is electricity, and it will be when the damn Russians are either destroyed or there will be a day of rest and humanitarian corridor.”
He added: “Today Russian fascists create a humanitarian disaster in Mariupol!
“We are being destroyed as a nation. This is a genocide of the Ukrainian people. These hypocrites came to "save" Russian-speaking citizens of mariupol and the region. And arranged the extermination of Ukrainians… of Russian, Ukrainian, Greek and other origin.”
On Friday, he added: “We are standing. Our defenders do the impossible - there are no words to express the gratitude.”
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After nine days, Mr Putin may have managed to wreck Mariupol’s buildings and support systems, but his mission to crush its citizens’ spirit has yet to show any sign of success.
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