Kathrine Frich
Russia claims it “liberated” Marinka in 2023,
Russia claims it “liberated” Marinka in 2023,
Marinka: from thriving town to ruin
Marinka, in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, once held nearly 10,000 residents before the full-scale invasion.
Today, the town is virtually uninhabitable, not a single building remains intact.
Photojournalists call it “apocalyptic”: evidence of war’s total destruction.
Symbolic “liberation” becomes devastation
Russia claims it “liberated” Marinka in 2023, but what remains is rubble.
The contrast is stark: a town once with a church, neighborhoods, public life, now completely decimated.
The word “liberation” echoes hollow in the ruins.
Church and bell tower stand as ghost relics
Even Marinka’s church, once a site of community worship, was not spared.
Only a fragment of bell tower and fallen bells remain, silent witnesses to what was.
They mark the spiritual as well as physical loss inflicted on the town.
Drone imagery reveals scale of destruction
Recent drone footage shows vast swaths of destruction across the entire settlement.
Streets, homes, infrastructure. all reduced to debris and collapsed walls.
One correspondent noted: “not even a home stands where people once lived.”
Evacuation emptied the town
By November 2022, all civilians had reportedly left Marinka, as the town became too dangerous to inhabit.
The evacuation preceded most of the final destruction, leaving Marinka a ghost town.
No one returned to live there, its fate sealed by conflict.
Battle raged for months before capture
Fighting in Marinka stretched from 2022 to late 2023, as both sides vied for control.
On December 25, 2023, Russia formally claimed capture; Ukraine initially denied it.
By the next day, Ukrainian leadership conceded loss.
Strategic value and geography
Marinka held importance due to its location near Donetsk and supply lines.
Control of Marinka allowed Russia to deepen its hold on the Donbas region.
Yet in many ways its strategic value now lies in symbolism, wiping out what once was.
This article is made and published by Kathrine Frich, which may have used AI in the preparation
