The remains of the houses are now surrounded by debris due to repeated attacks.
It has been over a year since Russia launched its military operation on Ukraine. There has been an unimaginable loss of life, people fled homes, pets killed and infrastructure destroyed. Now, shocking pictures released by Ukraine show the magnitude of the Russian army's damage to a city in the Donetsk region.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine took to Twitter to share the images. The visuals, taken by a drone, show how Marinka, a city in Donetsk, that housed around 10,000 people, has been reduced to ruins. The remains of the houses are now surrounded by debris as a result of repeated attacks.
"Ukrainian Marinka in the Donetsk region. It used to be home for around 10,000 people. It used to be a peaceful city. It used to be... until Russia's war criminals razed it to the ground. Zoom in to see that nothing is left untouched," reads the caption of the post.
As per a report in the Independent, Marinka was initially attacked when Russian forces and Donbas separatists first took control of the city. Then, four months later, it was retaken by the Ukrainian forces. However, since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February 2022, all of the city's buildings and trees have been destroyed, rendering the town uninhabitable. It is to be noted that Marinka is located near a major road and railways link southwest of Donetsk leading into western Ukraine.
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Artem Schus, the police chief of Marinka, referred to the town as "completely destroyed," adding that everyone had left it aside from the army "because there is no way for the civilian population to live there." "There is not one building that wasn't damaged. Currently, there are no civilians left in the city because the military administration and police evacuated all residents, all children. Living there is impossible," he said, as per the outlet.