For two weeks, as bombs and artillery rained down on the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Natalia Harabuga huddled in a basement with her two daughters and 100 others.
All they could do was sit and listen while their neighborhoods were destroyed under almost constant bombardment.
Some of those who took refuge with Kharabuga squeezed their shovels in case the whole building collapsed and people had to dig furiously.
There was no heat. No electricity. Without water.
When Harabuga and others were forced out of the dungeon to try to find water, she saw a ruined city surrounded by death.
“Everything was on fire – there were bodies everywhere,” the 42-year-old told CBC News in Riga, Latvia, where she arrived earlier this month after a grueling 11-day trip from Ukraine.
Natalia Harabuga, 42, is temporarily living in Riga, Latvia after fleeing Mariupol. According to official data, Latvia has received more than 22,000 Ukrainian refugees. (Brier Stewart / CBC)
Harabuga spoke on Thursday, just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, on state television for the successful military operation, saying Mariupol had been “liberated”.
“This is tyranny,” Harabuga said in response. “What are you congratulating him on? There’s nothing left.”
Destruction of Mariupol
A city with 400,000 inhabitants on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol is strategically important. The weeks-long bombing was devastating and killed thousands.
Images on social media show Russian flags, as well as flags of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, rising in the city, while others show Chechen fighters linked to Russia celebrating in front of the ruins.
Natalia Harabuga and her children hid for two weeks in the basement of this building during the intense bombings in Mariupol. (Submitted by Natalia Harabuga)
After weeks of growing losses and slow progress in capturing Ukrainian territory, Russia is keen to declare military victory. Now that its troops are surrounding Mariupol, there is growing talk of Russia’s goal to take over Ukraine’s southern coast to build a land bridge to Crimea.
The Crimean peninsula, which Russia captured in 2014, is connected to the country by a bridge over the Kerch Strait. If Russia controlled Ukraine’s coastline, Crimea would be connected to Russian-backed territories occupied in eastern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was seen during a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on Thursday. (Submission of the Kremlin through Reuters)
This was confirmed on Friday by the commander of the Central Military District of Russia Rustam Minekayev. Minekaev was quoted in state media stating that one of Russia’s goals is to establish full control over Donbass and southern Ukraine in order to create a land corridor to Crimea.
Minekayev said it would not only give Russia influence over Ukraine’s economy, but also give the military access to Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria. Minekayev said Russian-speakers there were suppressed.
His comments, made at a meeting of the Russian defense, followed a statement by a member of the State Duma of Russia. On Thursday, Oleg Morozov told state television that Russia’s operation in Mariupol had achieved its “long-awaited goal.” He said the port has already been vacated and there will be a land route to Crimea.
WATCH Putin claims that Mariupol has been “liberated” while Ukrainians continue to fight:
Putin claims that Mariupol is “liberated”, Ukrainian civilians are training for conflict
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol “liberated” by his troops, despite an embargo on nearby steelmaking “so that no fly can pass”. Elsewhere in Ukraine, civilians are stepping up to train for battle against Russian forces. 2:46
“Republics friendly to Russia”
In the state newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, columnist Mikhail Rostovsky predicted what might happen next, saying southern Ukraine could be “cut by referendums” to create a “belt of Moscow-friendly people’s republics.” .
The People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk were established in 2014, when Russian-backed forces seized large parts of eastern Ukraine and helped set up local administrations. No country in the world, except Russia, recognizes these regions as independent states.
Since then, several hundred thousand people in these regions have been given Russian passports.
In 2014, heavy fighting broke out in parts of Mariupol between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed militias. Ukraine briefly lost control of the city before regaining it.
The city contains some of Ukraine’s largest metal plants, including the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukraine claims several hundred fighters, along with about 1,000 civilians, have been sheltered and surrounded by Russian forces.
In a televised meeting Thursday, Putin ordered his defense minister to “cancel” a plan to storm the massive factory and its large maze of tunnels because it would put the lives of the military at risk unnecessarily.
Instead, he said the area should be blocked so that even a fly could not come out.
Pavel Luzin, a political analyst in St. Petersburg, says Putin’s messages were aimed at both international and domestic audiences. He believes Putin has tried to convince people that he is not a “cruel, insane maniac”, but also that he alone is in control.
Locals are standing close to emergency management specialists transporting the bodies of people killed in the conflict in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
Luzin says he cannot begin to speculate on what is going on in Putin’s mind because he is not a “psychotherapist.” But he believes that in the short term, Russia must create some kind of stability, as its military forces have been exhausted and the troops will have to be removed by mid-May.
He rejected talks about the need for Russia to secure a military victory until May 9, when the country celebrates its annual Victory Day, to commemorate the army’s achievements during World War II. A parade with 11,000 troops is planned.
Luzin says there is no need for tangible progress in Ukraine because the Kremlin, which has essentially destroyed all independent media in Russia, controls the narrative and can turn the situation around.
Refugee life
Natalia Kharabuga says that as a Russian-speaking woman in Mariupol, she has never felt oppressed by Ukrainians, a claim the Kremlin often makes.
She admits she is not a political analyst, but believes Russia is simply pursuing land.
While talking to the CBC, Harabuga was clearly traumatized and struggled to think about where her family would go next.
The five-story apartment building in which she lived was demolished. The entrance collapsed, and then the whole structure caught fire.
Natalia Harabuga, in the center, lived in Mariupol with her husband Evgeny, who had left both her daughters Polina and Daria. (Submitted by Natalia Harabuga)
She remembers her neighborhood, where children go to school and play in yards full of flowers.
“[The Russians] I just went in and blew everything up and they broke it, “she said.” How am I going to get back there? “
Luzin says his heart is broken by what is happening in Ukraine, acknowledging that he has strong family ties there.
His grandfather was born in Lviv, Ukraine, but his family was forcibly relocated to Perm, Russia when he was 11, as some relatives served in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the 1940s. The UPA was a paramilitary nationalist organization that fought primarily against Soviet and Polish forces during World War II and was sometimes allied with the Nazis.
Several of Luzin’s relatives were sent to the Gulag.
He fears that the war in Ukraine could last for years and develop into periods of intense fighting and relative calm.
Putin may say his goal is to eradicate the Ukrainian Nazis, but Luzin believes he wants all of Ukraine at all costs.
“Right now, the Kremlin will take over a desert, a devastated city [Mariupol]”The plan is the same as in 2014: a political goal to destroy the Ukrainian state.”
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