[1][8] On 24 February 2022, the Russian Armed Forces, working together with pro-Russian militias, besieged the port city of Mariupol, leading to heavy casualties.

The message was an attempt to identify the building to attacking forces as a civilian air raid shelter containing children, and not a military target.

[16] A member of the Ukrainian parliament from Mariupol, Dmytro Gurin, said that the rescue efforts were hampered due to continued attacks on the area by Russian forces.

[23][24] On 25 March, The Washington Post published an investigation that cited witnesses that said that all families that had been sheltering in the theatre's basement had escaped unscathed and evacuations had begun before the bombing.

[9][12] They claimed that no Russian forces carried out air strikes within the city and blamed Azov Regiment for "taking hostages" of civilians and blowing up the upper floors of the theatre.

[28] On 13 April, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) published a report which covered the Mariupol theatre airstrike.

And not one person doubted that the theater was destroyed in a Russian air attack aimed with precision at a civilian target everyone knew was the city’s largest bomb shelter, with children in it.On 30 June 2022, Amnesty International concluded that the airstrike was perpetrated by Russian forces which used two 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) bombs, and that it is a war crime.

All those responsible must be held accountable for causing such death and destruction.Amnesty International believes that at least a dozen people were killed by the strike and likely many more, and that many others were seriously injured.

[1]On July 11, 2022 Ukrainian media reported that the theatre rubble was cleared by Russians and bodies of victims were allegedly taken away to an unknown place.

[32] In February 2023, Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko [sv] was sentenced to six years in prison under Russia's war censorship laws for publishing information about the Mariupol theatre airstrike.