It was reported that on March 16, Russian forces destroyed a theater in Mariupol, in which hundreds of innocent civilians were taking shelter. But was this purported attack, which would have displayed a pure barbarism divorced from military intention, a staged media event, designed to serve as a pretext for NATO involvement in the Ukraine conflict?
Max Blumenthal, writing in the GrayZone on March 18, puts forward evidence that the stunt was conducted by the Azov Battalion, founded by Andriy Biletsky, who has vowed to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade ... against Semite-led Untermenschen.” (https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/18/bombing-mariupol-theater-ukrainian-azov-nato-intervention/)
Multiple reports from residents who had fled Mariupol, an Azov stronghold, testify to the Azov Battalion preventing civilians from leaving the area, in order to use them as human shields.
On March 12, Dmitriy Steshin, a Mariupol correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on Telegram that there were two false provocations planned for Mariupol. One was a plan to push for Turkish involvement, by an attack on a mosque. The second was an attack on civilians gathered for safety in the theater.
And later that day, Western outlets did indeed repeat Ukrainian claims that the Turkish-built Kanuni Sultan Suleyman mosque had been shelled by Russian forces. But the official Turkish press outlet Anadolu Agency reached the head of the mosque, who reported that the closest rockets were the better part of a kilometer away, and that the mosque “remains undamaged.”
Then, on March 16, came reports that the theater had been “bombed ... to ashes” in the words of a reporter for the Kyiv Independent, which had been set up with assistance from the National Endowment for Democracy.
The source of still photos (there was no video) demonstrating the bombing? Azov. But what happened to the hundreds of people huddling in the basement? “It’s a miracle,” remarked Illia Ponomarenko, a Kyiv Independent reporter. “Civilians that were hiding in a basement at the Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the air strike.” Quite a remarkable outcome!
