Russian Media Slammed for 'Bragging' Over New Traffic Lights in Ruined City

Russian media has been mocked online after boasting about the installation of a traffic light in occupied Mariupol, a city left devastated by Russian bombardment.

A 16-second clip showing the traffic light, in front of a burnt-out and partially collapsed shopping and apartment complex, was posted on Telegram by state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

The video, which has been viewed more than 300,000 times, was accompanied with the caption "first traffic light in Mariupol".

It led to criticism after being reposted to Twitter by several users, including Francis Scarr, who monitors Russian state media for the BBC.

Critics included a Twitter account run by the team of Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader serving 11 and a half years in jail, following a trial that Amnesty International condemned as a politically motivated "sham".

The account tweeted in Russian: "They brag about the first traffic light in Mariupol.

"Before Putin's 'salvation' they probably did not hear about such a curiosity there.

"When you beat someone half to death, took everything that was, and then you proudly tell everyone how you gave candy."

Popular Politics, a Russian-language account with 5,400 followers, posted the video and a photograph of what the building looked like before the war.

The account said: "Achievements of the 'Russian world' - the first traffic light started working in Mariupol, destroyed by shelling.

"RIA Novosti joyfully publishes a video where, against the backdrop of a building burned by fires with broken windows, cars drive and the same traffic light is standing.

"The building is located on Prospekt Mira, 75B. Before the war, there were shops, a communications salon and a bank branch.

"The traffic light, by the way, also works properly in the pre-war photo. What propagandists are proud of is unclear. Apparently by the fact that they fixed what they themselves broke."

A third account, run by a Navalny supporter, said: "RIA: we destroyed the city, killed civilians, but then we fixed the traffic light!"

Russia finally ended Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol in May after a grueling two-month battle that left much of the city in ruin.

Ukrainian troops made their final stand in the Azovstal iron and steel works, a huge facility made easily defensible by its network of underground bunkers and tunnels.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said 20,000 civilians were killed during the Russian attack on his city, though this figure has not been independently verified.

After the Ukrainian surrender, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu described Mariupol as "completely liberated."

The Russians said that many of the defenders were from the Azov Regiment, a group with far-right links that the Kremlin regards as neo-Nazis, and which it used in part to justify the original invasion to "denazify" Ukraine.

One senior U.S. intelligence figure said the Russian operation was being undermined by meddling from President Vladimir Putin.

"Putin, like every other dictator we've known in the modern era, thinks he knows better, more than his own military, and more than any experts", they told Newsweek.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has been contacted for comment.