Chinese Citizens' Mariupol Visit Leaves Ukrainian Regime Infuriated

Chinese bloggers earlier told Sputnik that they had decided to visit Mariupol to see for themselves how people there were going about their daily lives.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will ban Chinese opera singer Wang Fang and bloggers from the PRC who visited Mariupol from entering the country, Kiev spokesman Oleh Nikolenko has announced.

In a statement on Friday, he called Wang’s performance of the Soviet song “Katyusha” in a damaged theater in Mariupol “an example of complete moral degradation.” Nikolenko added that the Chinese delegation violated Ukrainian legislation, which regulates the crossing of the state border by foreigners.

“Kiev respects the territorial integrity of China and expects Beijing to explain the purpose of the Chinese residents' stay in Mariupol, as well as the ways they used to enter” the city, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The remarks come as Chinese blogger Xu Jijun told Sputnik about his and his colleague's visit to hostility-hit Mariupol, where he said they had seen the suffering locals went through.

“We saw houses of ordinary people destroyed by shells, with holes in their living rooms. We have a lot of empathy and sympathy for those people,” he added.

Xu underscored that they had come to Mariupol to not enjoy the beauty, but to feel the atmosphere in which people now live in Russia.” He noted that since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, the Chinese have had the opportunity to keep an eye on developments there.

Xu spoke after the Chinese bloggers’ and Wang’s meeting with the acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, in Mariupol as well as with the head of Crimea Sergey Aksenov, earlier this week.

Wang’s performance in the city caused an online uproar on Chinese mobile platforms, where several million viewers watched the clip of the opera singer performing the “Katyusha" song. Most users posted friendly remarks, praising Wang’s action and wishing the quick restoration of the Mariupol Drama Theater.

Mariupol, a city located on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, was a hotbed of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev until it was liberated by Russian forces on April 21, 2022. Since, Russia has been clearing the city's port of mines and restoring civilian infrastructure.

Last March, Ukraine claimed that a Russian airstrike leveled the Mariupol Drama Theater, which Ukrainians allegedly used as a bomb shelter. The allegations were rejected by the Russian Defense Ministry. The head of the investigative department of the DPR Prosecutor General's Office, Alexei Kutsurubenko, told Sputnik that Kiev's claims were "a lie and a fake" because the explosion was triggered from inside. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Mariupol Drama Theater collapsed on March 16, 2022, after an explosion caused by nationalists from the Azov Battalion*.

*terrorist organization banned in Russia