Google’s new satellite images expose Kremlin’s destruction of Mariupol - photos

In the first months after Russia’s assault, the UN reported damage to up to 90% of Mariupol’s residential buildings. Mayor Vadym Boichenko said in 2023 that Russian forces had destroyed over 2,200 apartment buildings, half of them completely, and damaged or destroyed most of the city’s 206 historic buildings.

Iconic Landmarks Erased

In December 2022, occupiers demolished the Mariupol Drama Theater, where a Russian airstrike killed up to 600 civilians sheltering inside. During the so-called “reconstruction,” in March 2024, eight of the nine original sculptures on the theater’s façade were destroyed, the rest collapsed later. They were replaced by copies made in Rostov-on-Don, while the pedestrian square in front was paved over as a parking lot. The theater’s reopening was promoted by Russian propaganda, featuring shows like “One Love — One Russia.”

Russia’s St. Petersburg authorities seized the late-19th-century Taruta House, once richly decorated with redwood, marble, and copper roofing. These materials were stripped in the 2024 “restoration.”

The historic Continental Hotel, built in 1897 and used as a shelter by hundreds of civilians during the siege, was gutted in 2022. Occupation authorities are replacing its original architectural details with white plastic windows, erasing its heritage.

The Folk Life Museum, which housed over 5,000 artifacts of Ukrainian, Greek, and other local cultures, was looted or destroyed. Its revamped exhibition now glorifies Soviet official Andrey Zhdanov and the Russian military, displaying HIMARS shell fragments and seized Ukrainian insignia. Local schoolchildren are now brought on tours where World War II battles are compared to Russia’s current war.

Historic core demolished

While occupation officials initially promised to restore Mariupol’s historic center, in September they announced plans to demolish most of it for new housing, covering 59 hectares. Residents are to be relocated to new apartment blocks.

Problematic reconstruction

The Kremlin’s first flagship housing project, Nevsky district, built by a Defense Ministry contractor, includes 18 buildings with over 1,000 apartments.
Although Moscow claimed all 500 units in the first phase were occupied, locals reported many remained empty. By early 2024 the buildings already showed damage, flooded transformer stations, and crumbling balconies.

Other major projects — Mirapolis, Rezidenciya, Zhukov, and Lazurni Berehi — are still in early stages. Russia has also promised to transform the ruins of Azovstal steelworks into a “promenade with shops, parks, and museums,” but satellite images show mainly scrap removal, not actual rebuilding.

City still in ruins

Suspilne highlighted that most of Mariupol’s housing stock remains in rubble.
Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said about 700 apartment blocks are stuck in “frozen repairs”, with occupiers shifting responsibility for completion onto residents.

Occupation authorities claim to have handed out 4,500 apartments as compensation, but Mariupol’s City Council points out that Russian forces destroyed about 52,000 homes, and even by official figures only around 5% of the lost housing has been restored.