KYIV — Vadym Boichenko has been a mayor in exile for more than two years. His city remains in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin two years after Moscow’s forces reduced it to rubble, but Boichenko is still fighting for its future.
“Mariupol is a military crime,” he told The Hill in central Kyiv, and the city’s residents “want to come back home. They strive for justice.”
Boichenko and his partners are vowing to rebuild Mariupol even better than before, with the hopes that this project will also create a roadmap on how other cities can rebuild once the war is over, whenever that might be.
Russia invaded Mariupol, a once-bustling coastal city on the Sea of Azov in southeastern Ukraine, in one of the earliest and deadliest offensives of the war, pounding Mariupol with missiles and moving in heavy tanks and infantry.
Its people held on for 86 days during Russia’s invasion in March 2022, including a famous stand at the Azovstal steel plant that ended in May. Across Mariupol, around 22,000 people died in the Russian attack.
Though Mariupol fell to Russian forces, it remains a symbol of Ukrainian resistance — and, for Boichenko and others, hope.
While there is no full assessment of damages or a master plan, Mariupol Reborn has proposed the basic outlines for rebuilding the city.
The architectural vision calls for more green spaces and parks, while slowly building up the density of housing and reconstructing public transportation. Mariupol’s drama theater — bombed by Russia, killing several hundred people seeking shelter inside — is also slated for a rebuild after public input on the plan. And the city will host memorials and museums for the fallen defenders.
The current revival plan includes 154 projects, 650 pieces of equipment and 7,500 personnel at the start. The cost of the project is expected to exceed $15 billion and could take up to 20 years, making assistance from donors and other nations crucial to rebuilding in what has been described as the largest city revival plan in Europe since World War II.
Boichenko, who has consulted European experts on rebuilding given their knowledge of reconstructing cities after World War II, presented an initial plan to a European Union advisory committee in April.
The mayor said he is confident in winning international support for this mission.
“Our obligation is the obligation of Europe in revitalizing and rebuilding Ukraine,” he said.
The U.S. and Europe are discussing the possibility of seizing some $300 billion in Russian assets frozen abroad after the invasion of Ukraine to help pay for military support to Kyiv, but there is also a desire to make Moscow pay for rebuilding the war-torn country.
“What Putin destroyed, Russia should – and must – pay to rebuild,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a May speech while in Kyiv. “It’s what international law demands; it’s what the Ukrainian people deserve. Our Congress has given us the power to seize Russian assets in the United States. We intend to use it.”
Boichenko said he agreed a “million percent.”
“We are still doubting what to do with this money?” he said. “This is the money of the criminals, which have to be directed [and] given to the people to whom they were terrorizing and whom they were killing.”
The mayor is not alone in pushing for the restoration of Mariupol. Systems Capital Management (SCM), an investment company and the largest private sector employer in Ukraine headed by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, is also a big part of the reconstruction mission. (Akhmetov’s foundation paid for The Hill’s trip to Ukraine).
SCM was heavily involved in Mariupol, owning key assets like the Azovstal steel plant, making the city an emotional and financial loss for the company. Now the company wants to invest in reconstruction and Mariupol’s future; one proposal includes transforming 48 schools into more modern educational institutions.
More broadly, Mariupol, built during the Soviet Union, now has a chance to separate from that past, said Natalya Yemchenko, director of communications at SCM and a member of the supervisory board of the nonprofit charity Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
“The city will be more human-centric,” she said, describing a variety of cultures and countries as likely to contribute to the designs for areas like public spaces. “One of the biggest changes we’d like to do is de-Sovietization.”
The first steps would have to involve simpler measures, like demining the city, reducing pollution and establishing adequate humanitarian aid facilities. The initial construction in the architectural vision aims for 660 apartment buildings and 1,346 houses.
Officials may have drafted a plan to restore the city, but it remains under Russian occupation, with Moscow now running the city with its own installed leaders. The city recently held Russian-backed elections and still bears much damage from the fighting, according to a March report in The Economist.
With Russia advancing on the battlefield and taking more territory along the frontlines, and Ukraine failing last year to retake ground in a counter-offensive, it’s not clear when or if Mariupol will be returned.
“We are marathon runners. So we are very prepared to work and to be together and to move in the right direction for 10 years, 30 years, 40 years,“ said Yemchenko. “I’m pretty sure that at some point of time, we will come back.”
If that transpires, Boichenko faces a reckoning over his flight from the city just two days after the Russian invasion, while many Mariupol citizens were still trapped.
But Boichenko said Russia destroyed the city and blamed the criticism on Moscow’s propaganda machine. He said the people of Mariupol should be “united” against Russia.
The defenders at the Azovstal plant are among the many heroes of Ukraine’s resistances. For more than a month, they held out under intense Russian bombardment to protect Ukrainian civilians sheltered inside of the plant, including a young mother and her son, until a final surrender.
Through the Heart of Azovstal program, the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation is working to free those Mariupol defenders in Russian captivity, who have been imprisoned for more than two years. Across Kyiv, signs posted to streetlamps call to “Free Azovstal Defenders.”
Yemchenko said freeing those prisoners is critical because of the dire conditions they are believed to be held in.
“War is terrible stuff,” she said, “but captivity is probably worse because it’s almost like slavery.”
She said the foundation wants to keep a prisoner swap top of mind for eventual negotiations, and maintain a sense of urgency two years after they entered captivity.
“It’s absolutely impossible to influence directly,” she said. “That means we have to be creative.”
The Foundation is also working on a project to tell the full story of the 86 days of defense of Mariupol in what they say will be the most detailed account of the battle yet.
Roughly 12,000 defenders stood against Russian forces in Mariupol. Around a third died, another third remains captured, and some 800 are missing, according to Yemchenko. The rest made it out alive.
Among those freed defenders is Anatoliy Basenko, a retired private first class who served in the Azov brigade, a unit formerly based in Mariupol when Russia attacked.
Basenko was injured during the defense of Mariupol and was forced to have his leg amputated while Russia was pounding the city. Basenko, who now has a prosthetic leg, said he was provided with rehabilitation services for his injury through the Heart of Azovstal.
He was forced to surrender in May and was taken to a hospital in Donetsk, where he says he was interrogated by Russian special forces for information about the Ukrainian military. Basenko said he gave them false information.
Basenko was freed in a prisoner swap in June 2022, a priority in the negotiations at the time because of his injuries. Since his release, he has not forgotten his fellow soldiers.
“The defenders of Mariupol are suffering in Russian prisons and they are suffering much more than other prisoners captured in different regions and different parts of the frontline,” he said.
Basenko said he works with the Foundation through conferences, promotions and marketing materials to highlight the detained fighters and tackle what he says remains a “crucial” problem for the Ukrainian people.
The wounded veteran expressed frustration that the prisoners of war are not afforded basic rights under the Geneva Convention, including the right to communicate with their family and loved ones.
“Russia is scared to show our prisoners because they are in very bad places,” he said. “Russians are just trying to hide them.”
Rostyslav Prystupa, a retired Marine, also survived the defense of Azovstal and served in the Azov battalion. In March 2022, he was severely injured from shelling, immobilizing him for nearly two months as he sheltered in a bunker before he was captured.
He spent around a month in Russian detention in a Donetsk hospital. Prystupa was eventually exchanged in a prisoner swap and has since recovered from his injuries, though he is still using crutches.
The Foundation helped him with finding a house, and Prystupa said he in turn is actively involved in conferences and events that highlight the issue of his comrades still in captivity.
“We’re just trying to make Ukrainians remember,” he said.
