I was in Mariupol in the summer of 2014 when Russian armored columns advanced to the city’s outskirts. By Sept. 4, the concussions of approaching artillery and tank shots had grown so loud that they rattled downtown windows. People on the streets threw around words like "Grozny," and "Stalingrad.” Some people fled, but most stayed behind and braced for a full-on siege. Old men and boys joined crash-course military training programs; gray-haired grandmothers sewed ghillie suits for snipers; middle-aged men dug tank traps and trenches. Meanwhile, many of Mariupol’s citizens showed their readiness to resist in other, symbolic ways. More than 1,000 civilians linked arms and formed a human chain at the city’s eastern limits on Aug. 31. Days later, while the booms of nearby combat cut through the summer air, thousands of civilians took to a downtown square and waved their blue and yellow flags and sang their nation’s anthem and declared their freedom was worth fighting for. The war’s first cease-fire in September 2014 spared Mariupol. That night, there was a rush of weddings around the city as couples followed through on ceremonies they’d put off for months due to the fighting. The mood was like New Year’s times a million. There was this sense that we’d just been spared the worst kind of disaster. We were wrong, of course. Over the intervening years, I often visited Mariupol and witnessed the city’s remarkable transformation into a vibrant, democratic success story. Mariupol’s youth grew up within earshot of the front lines, which had frozen just a couple miles beyond the city limits. Yet, those young people, along with a generation of volunteers who transitioned from supporting combat missions to serving in local government, led sweeping changes in the city’s civil society. They fought back against corruption and took action to improve their city, creating new opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. A local businessman founded a start-up hub. A local volunteer group held democracy classes, teaching residents — many of whom had grown up in the Soviet Union — how to demand accountability from their local government. There were new restaurants, and coffee shops, and craft cocktail bars. A beautiful new pier in the Sea of Azov became a favorite place for families to gather, and for couples to go on dates. Mariupol was proud to be Ukrainian, and its citizens had their eyes firmly set on a democratic future. After living with Russia’s war on their doorstep for years, they clearly understood what life under Russian rule would mean. And they wanted nothing of it. Yet, that Mariupol is gone. Russia annihilated the city and killed an untold number of its civilians in order to “liberate” them from the very future they’d chosen for themselves. Mariupol’s tragic fate is what Ukrainians are fighting to prevent from happening nationwide. (My photos below.)