The Siege of Mariupol was a battle of the Russo-Ukrainian War which was fought in February 2022 between the Russian military and the Ukrainian Ground Forces in the coastal city of Mariupol on the Black Sea.
On 24 February, the first day of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian artillery bombarded the city, injuring 26 people. The next morning, Russian armored forces advanced from the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic in the east towards Mariupol, encountering Ukrainian forces near the village of Pavlopil.
The Ukrainians destroyed 22 Russian tanks in the ensuing battle, but, that evening, the Russian Navy began an amphibious assault on the Sea of Azov coastline just to the west of Mariupol and deployed thousands of marines from the beachhead. On 26 February, Russian bombardment killed 10 Greek civilians in the Mariupol villages of Sartana and Buhas, and two more were killed by Russian shelling on 28 February. On 27 February, a Russian armored column was repelled during its attack on Mariupol from DPR territory, and the Ukrainians continued to hold out in the face of heavy Russian shelling.
On 1 March, DPR leader Denis Pushilin announced that DPR forces had almost completely surrounded the city of Volnovakha, and Sartana was captured by the Russians. On 2 March 2022, the Mayor of Mariupol announced that non-stop Russian bombardments caused mass casualties and a water shortage; even after Russia agreed to a ceasefire in the humanitarian corridors of Mariupol and Volnovakha, the Russian shelling continued. On 15 March, around 4,000 vehicles with about 20,000 civilians were able to leave the city, but, on 20 March, it was reported that the Russians had forcibly deported several thousand Ukrainian refugees to camps and remote cities in Russia. On 20 March, the Russian Air Force bombed an art school being used as a bomb shelter, trapping 400 people.