Mariupol

Mariupol is a port city on the northern shore of the Sea of Azov in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, standing at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Before the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 it was the tenth-largest city in Ukraine and the second-largest in its oblast, with an estimated 425,681 residents in January 2022. It grew from a Cossack encampment known as Kalmius and received city rights within the Russian Empire in 1778. Through the twentieth century it became a centre of grain trade, metallurgy and heavy engineering, notably the Illich and Azovstal iron and steel works, and it also served as a coastal resort. From 1948 to 1989 it was named Zhdanov, after the Soviet official Andrei Zhdanov, a native of the city. The siege of Mariupol, from 24 February to 20 May 2022, largely destroyed the city, and Ukraine later named it a Hero City. Russian forces have held it since, and by 2023 Ukrainian authorities estimated its population at roughly 120,000.