The destroyed Mariupol Drama Theatre, which could have killed up to 600 people as a result of the strike, was covered from four sides with banners depicting Russian writers and poets. The photos were published in the official Telegram channel of the Mariupol City Council.
“This wounded heart and soul of Mariupol is the Drama Theatre. the occupiers hid it so as not to remind them of their own crimes,” the message says.
Back in June, the Russian state propaganda agency RIA Novosti published a news item with the headline: “Drama theater in Mariupol planned to open on September 10.” The “acting general director” of the theater, Ilya Solonin, stated during a press tour organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense that the task was to open the drama theater by September 10.
Solonin also promised that the new season would open with "two or three dance and pop-concert numbers, as well as a theatrical performance."
The attack on the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theater in Mariupol was inflicted on March 16 by Russian aircraft. In June, the international human rights organization Amnesty International, during the investigation, came to the conclusion that the Russian strike on the drama theater was a war crime. A human rights organization commissioned a physicist to build a mathematical model of an explosion to determine the mass of explosive that would be required to cause such destruction. The scientist came to the conclusion that the Russian fighter dropped two bombs weighing 400-800 kg, they exploded simultaneously. Most likely, the strikes were carried out by Su-25, Su-30 or Su-34 fighters, which were based at nearby Russian airfields and often operated over southern Ukraine.
Associated Press journalists who interviewed eyewitnesses concluded that about 600 people could have died as a result of the strike. They used two floor plans of the theatre, photographs and videos taken both before and after the airstrike to estimate the number of casualties, and also relied on the findings of experts. Some of the victims could be taken out by the military of the Russian Federation, AP notes.