He said this on the Espreso TV channel.
"The occupying Russian forces have taken away people's homes by force, and now they are selling this property. Mariupol's residents fled under Russian shells to save their lives, and then their homes were taken away from them," Zabavin said.
According to him, the Russians are organizing genocide in Mariupol and are doing everything to make pensioners die.
" The elderly cannot get medical care and proper nutrition. Instead of pensioners, whom the occupiers continue to kill, organizing genocide, they bring in their young guest workers, "native peoples" of the Russian Federation. But they have the same relation to Mariupol as the Russian Federation itself," Zabavin noted.
When Mariupol was home to 500,000 people, the mortality rate was lower than it is now, when the number of people is 100,000, he said.
"Putin cynically said that Mariupol is 'rejuvenating'. This is true, because they are killing civilians and the mortality rate in Mariupol today is higher than before," the city council member added.