‘One big mass grave’: Evidence points to 600 killed in theatre attack
She stood in just her bathrobe in the freezing basement of the Mariupol theatre, coated in white plaster dust shaken loose by the explosion. Her husband tugged at her to leave and begged her to cover her eyes.
But she couldn’t help it — Oksana Syomina looked. And to this day, she wishes she hadn’t.
Bodies were strewn everywhere, including those of children. Syomina had to step on the dead to escape the building that had served as the Ukrainian city’s main bomb shelter for more than a week.
Syomina, her husband and about 30 others ran blindly toward the sea for almost 8km without stopping, the theatre in ruins behind them.
“All the people are still under the rubble, because the rubble is still there,” Syomina said, weeping at the memory. “This is one big mass grave.”
Amid all the horrors that have unfolded in the war on Ukraine, the Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol on March 16 stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date. An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that the attack was in fact far deadlier than estimated, killing closer to 600 people — almost double the death toll cited so far.
The AP investigation recreated what happened inside the theatre on that day from the accounts of 23 survivors, rescuers, and people familiar with its new life as a bomb shelter.
With communications severed, people coming and going constantly, and memories blurred by trauma, an exact toll is impossible to determine.
The AP investigation contradicts Russian claims that the theatre was demolished by Ukrainian forces or served as a Ukrainian military base.
The Russian siege of Mariupol started in the first days of March. The city soon ordered the entire theatre opened as a bomb shelter, given its size, sturdy walls and large basement.
About a week before the bombing, the theatre’s set designer used white paint to inscribe the word “CHILDREN” in Cyrillic letters on the pavement outside, in the hope of staving off an attack from above.
The signs were large enough to be read even from satellites.
By March 15, about 1200 people crammed into the building, sleeping in offices, corridors, balconies, the basement.
Among those who showed up in the hope of evacuating on March 16 were the Kutnyakov family.
“We were immediately offered and poured tea,” said Galina Kutnyakova, the 56-year-old matriarch. “You have to imagine, we had hardly eaten or drunk for six days. Everyone was so happy because of the hot tea.”
The basement was full already. So were the first and second floors. They saw a spot on the third floor, near enormous windows that everyone knew would shatter into knives of flying glass if the building was hit. It
was the only place available, so they took it. It was about 10am.
Maria Kutnyakova, Galina’s 30-year-old daughter, walked outside and heard a warplane. Then came the explosion. The theatre stood bare, with a huge chunk of its red roof on the ground. The metre thick walls had disintegrated to dust.
As people fled the opposite way, Maria Kutnyakova ran into the hall looking for her mother and sister. Hoarse shouts filled the air. At first she shouted “Mum,” but she quickly realised that everyone around her was shouting the same word. So she screamed the family name instead.
Someone answered, “Masha Kutnyakova!” It sounded like it came from somewhere in the ground, but only the dead lay there.
She went to the stairs down to the basement and bomb shelter. There, at the bottom, stood her sister, covered in plaster dust, with a cat.
Their mother escaped out of a side exit. They made their way with a crowd of about 50 people to Mariupol’s Philharmonic, a nearby auditorium that also came under shelling at sunset.
The theatre now lies in ruins, with its side and centre blackened by fire. Russian forces control the neighbourhood around it, and AP video shows heavy equipment swarming the rubble to further dismantle it.
But the questions remain: How many bodies are there, and what happened to them?