Mstyslav Chernov’s documentary shows ‘indelible’ images from the first hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Ukrainian image reporter Mstyslav Chernov, correspondent for the Associated Press, filmed the first twenty days of the siege of Mariupol by the Russian army on a daily basis. This major document, nominated for the Oscars, is broadcast on Sunday at 10:15 p.m. on France 5.

Astonishment, incomprehension, fear, pain, resignation, desolation and devastation. By capturing the state of the inhabitants and the gradual destruction of the bombed city, the documentary by Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov, 20 days in Mariupol, is already a historical testimony of the war in Ukraine. The film, which has already received several awards and is nominated for an Oscar, will be broadcast on February 25 on France 5 to mark the second anniversary of the conflict.

February 24, 2022, Associated Press (AP) video journalist, fellow photographer Evgueniy Maloletka and video producer Vasilisa Stepanenko are the last international correspondents in Mariupol, a port and industrial city in southern Ukraine. A bridge to Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed in 2014 by Russia, Mariupol is an obvious target for President Vladimir Putin, who declared war on his neighbor a few hours earlier by announcing “a special operation”.

All the faces of resilience

Behind the camera, Mstyslav Chernov narrates, in the first person, twenty days immediately illustrating the type of war that the Kremlin intends to wage: civilians are directly targeted. Targeted by Russian planes and cannons, Mariupol will be deprived of electricity, running water and internet. All the inhabitants’ landmarks are shattered: they flee their homes, manage to stay alive in makeshift shelters, help each other and sometimes pillage each other. In Mariupol, resilience has many faces in the face of looming death.

Faced with the first victim of the Russian offensive that he encounters, Mstyslav Chernov is immediately confronted with a dilemma: to film or to comfort. The resident of Mariupol is in tears, she came out of her house to meet her son, who has to return from work, and she wonders where she can hide. The journalist advises her to find refuge at home, assuring her that civilians are not targets. He does not imagine, for a single moment, that he could be wrong: the neighborhood will be bombed by the Russians.

As the documentary unfolds, its director demonstrates, through the scope of the testimonies collected and the situations filmed, that his apparent dilemma is not one. At the heart of this human tragedy, the profession of journalism makes the verbs “help” and “do one’s job” synonymous. Stay at your job at all costs. Like the rescue workers, the security forces, the doctors and all the caregivers at the city hospital who ask him to film their mortally injured patients or the makeshift morgues where bodies are piled up, later buried in graves communities.

“I don’t want to live in Russia”

With 20 days in Mariupolwe (re)discover images qualified as“indelible” by a commentator and which went around the world thanks to the Associated Press agency team. Difficult to convey, they reveal the scale of the atrocities perpetrated by the Russian army in Mariupol. The destruction of the town’s maternity ward and the image of a seriously injured mother-to-be, transported on a stretcher, constitute the indisputable climax. So much so that the Russians, now kings of disinformation, are doing everything to discredit this episode, a reality that has been fixed forever. Enough to still wonder, with fear, what would have happened if these irrefutable images, which enabled the establishment of a humanitarian corridor, had not been immortalized.

On the fifteenth day of Mstyslav Chernov’s story, the Russian army enters Mariupol and surrounds hospital No. 2 where many residents have taken refuge, including the AP team. The latter has become a target, because its presence now bothers the Kremlin. Fact, 20 days in Mariupol illustrates the very purpose of the documentary exercise, capturing reality on the spot. The siege of Mariupol lasted 86 days and left at least 25,000 dead. “I don’t want to live in Russia”, had entrusted a young woman to the Associated Press team, rewarded with a Pulitzer for public service in 2023 for her work. This is what all Ukrainians have been shouting to the world for two years now.

To be seen on February 25 at 10:15 p.m. on France 5, after the program “Le monde en face: Ukraine, the cost of arms”
Also available on france.tv in the “The price of freedom” collection.