Published
Video length: 3 min
The bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital
A documentary follows the first days of the war between Ukraine and Russia in the martyred city of Mariupol. – (PBS Frontline and the Associated Press)
In a film broadcast Sunday evening on France 5, two Ukrainian journalists, Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka, recount the daily life of this port city besieged by Russian forces and dismantle Moscow’s propaganda.
On the first day of the outbreak of war in Ukraine, February 24, 2022, a team of journalists Ukrainian journalists from the Associated Press (AP) travel to Mariupol. They are convinced that this large industrial port city, on the edge of the Sea of Azov, will be one of the first targets for the Russians, as its position is strategic. A few hours later, the first detonations rang out. While the majority of international reporters leave the city, only two Ukrainian correspondents decide to stay. The images they will collect over three weeks will be covered by the media around the world. They made a documentary from it, 20 days in Mariupol, broadcast Sunday February 25 at 10:15 p.m. on France 5, as the conflict in Ukraine enters its third year.
On March 9, journalists Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka went with the emergency services to the bedside of the wounded in a hospital which had just been bombed. An act which constitutes a war crime under international law. Among the victims, Iryna, a pregnant woman evacuated on a stretcher, whose image quickly went around the world thanks to the two reporters.
“Deception, staged”
Very quickly, the Russian authorities deployed massive propaganda with the aim of forcefully discrediting this information. On Twitter and in television news, terms like “deception”, “staged”… Russian media say the real staff fled the hospital, which they say has become “a film set”, and that the caregivers and victims, including Iryna, are actors and extras. The propaganda reaches the ears of the director Mstyslav Chernov, who decides to find Iryna.
“We hoped the pregnant woman on the stretcher had survived.”
Mstyslav Chernov, director“20 days in Mariupol”
With his fellow reporter, he returns to the hospital, now surrounded by Russian forces and protected by the Ukrainian army. When they arrive in the surgery department, it is in full turmoil, there are so many injured people. Mstyslav Chernov then meets Oksana, one of the doctors, and questions her about Iryna’s fate. “They brought us a pregnant woman of about 30 years old, she replies. It was her first pregnancy and she succumbed to her injuries. His pelvis was completely fractured.(…) We extracted a dead child.” According to the caregivers, the young woman shouted “Kill me” upon arrival at the hospital, “She knew her baby was dead”.
The documentary 20 days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov, is broadcast on Sunday February 25 on France 5 at 10:15 p.m. and visible on the france.tv platform. It received the Ciné+ Prize at Fipadoc 2024 and is in the running for the Oscars on March 11.