MARIUPOL (Ukraine) – Mariupl residents relived the horrors in the Battle for Mariupol this week. They sorted through rubble to find their belongings and cooked food by the roadside. Or just stood there staring at the charred buildings around them.

“It was terrible… like films that show the last days of the planet – the same thing happened here,” said Viktoria Nikolayeva, 54, who like many residents stayed with her family in a basement as Russian and Ukrainian forces battled overhead.

We were starving, and the child began to cry when Grad (multiple rocket launcher gun) shells struck near our house. This was it. It’s the end. It is impossible to explain… It can’t be described,” she said, weeping to Reuters.

There were many emergency vehicles on the streets, collecting bodies from those who had not survived the fighting for weeks.

Mariupol, in southeast Ukraine, saw the most intense fighting and now much of this port city is in ruin. Russia declared victory, while hundreds of civilians and Ukrainian troops remain imprisoned in the huge industrial complex that is the Azovstal steelworks.

According to the office of Volodymyr Zeleskiy, Ukraine’s President, a plan was in place for Friday to expel civilians from this plant. But it did not provide any specifics. The previous evacuation attempts have been unsuccessful.

Russia denied that it targeted civilians during a “special operations” it called to disarm Ukraine as well as protect it from fascists. Both the West and Ukraine claim the fascist allegations are baseless, and they insist that the war against Russia is an unprovoked attack.

“ALL WILL BE OK”

Mariupol was covered in a blaze of destruction, with many apartment blocks missing their windows and balconies. A woman sliced an onion and set it on the table. A cyclist rode by. One man loaded his furniture onto a truck.

One of the many wooden crosses that were found in the area near an apartment block marked the place where someone was temporarily buried after the fighting.

According to Mayor Vadym Bichevenko, Mariupol saw the deaths of tens and thousands of civilians. Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross or the United Nations claim that thousands of people have been killed.

It was an act of terror. When the bombs flew overhead, it was terrifying. It was impossible to survive with all the rounds, shells, and other weapons. We did it, Vitaliy Kudasov (71).

“A shell exploded 8 metres away… “A shell exploded eight metres away… He said, “But whatever, it’ll all be okay.”