Wartime urban planning geovisualizations: The Russian authoritarian settler-colonial project and Mariupol’s reconstruction under occupation

This article examines the visual projections of Mariupol’s reconstruction following the 2022 Russian siege and subsequent occupation, focusing on geovisualizations of the city’s future produced by both public and private Russian actors. The analysis builds on research on demolition and reconstruction in wartime, while moving beyond the dichotomy between war-time demolition and peace-time reconstruction. To approach this, the article draws on postcolonial studies, which highlight the erasure logics characteristic of settler colonialism, as well as urban studies that emphasize the key features of authoritarian Russian urban planning. The visual representations of Mariupol’s reconstruction reflect the intersection of these two perspectives, resulting in a form of wartime urban planning that is both colonial and authoritarian. The article is structured around three main sections: the theoretical framework, the methodological approach, followed by a detailed presentation of the context in which the geovisualizations of Mariupol were produced. The fourth section presents one of the main empirical findings: the identification of three dominant visual regimes in these geovisualizations—the comfort gaze, normalization through functionalization and technicization, and pervasive russification. Each of these contributes to the visual and representational dimension of the wartime urban planning implemented by the Russian authorities in Mariupol’s reconstruction.