When I was unsure about what I was being told by the mainstream media regarding the attack on the police station in Mariupol, I headed out to the location myself. I spoke to locals and discovered the real truth. That the Ukrainian Army shot and killed their own police officers.
The site of this building is truly horrific. It was a turning point for me and one of the last trips I ever made to government controlled Ukraine. Many here told me how this wish that they were now under Russian separatist control and not by 'the fascists in Kiev'.
And of course, as one might expect from the current government. It's not long before I was detained & questioned, much to the disappointment of locals who asked the police officers 'Why can't he show people what those bastards did here?' #Mariupol
Passers by told me that what happened that day will never be forgotten. They said that after the shooting had finished, the police station was then torched and totally gutted to destroy any evidence of what happened inside. The bullet holes outside are a lot harder to hide.
Each year, on the anniversary of the event (May 9th) locals gather to come and lay flowers and pay their respects to those murdered inside this building. Intimidation from the local police is fairly blatant and locals told me how they feel threatened by such tactics. #Mariupol
Nothing is sacred. This was left not far from the police station in remembrance of one of the fallen, and was quickly removed by the police. A resident told me ‘It’s like they are trying to erase the past, to cover up and pretend that this did not happen. Just like the nazis’.
Around this time, the city council building in Mariupol was also torched. Events which happened here became known as 'The Battle of Mariupol'. Nobody knows the exact figure of how many people died.
And to finish off this thread. A local resident in Mariupol was only too happy to vent her frustration about the Ukrainian Army after they murdered local civilians and police officers in May 2014. These people witnessed it all.
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