20 Days in Mariupol (2023) - full transcript

This is the first time

I saw "Z,"

the Russian sign of war.

The hospital is surrounded.

Dozens of doctors,

hundreds of patients and us.

I have no illusions about

what will happen to us

if we are caught.

February 24, 2022.

The city looks normal.

Someone once told me, "Wars

don't start with explosions.

They start with silence."

When we realized that

the invasion was imminent,

our team decided to go

to Mariupol.

We were sure it would be

one of the main targets.

But we could never imagine

the scale

and that the whole country

would be under attack.

An hour after we arrive,

the first bombs hit

in the outskirts of the city.

A military base

with antiaircraft systems.

Russians are clearing the path

for warplanes.

Huge port, industrial city,

a bridge to Crimea.

We were here eight years ago

when Russia tried to take it.

And, without a doubt,

they will try again.

We drive to the Left Bank,

the part of the city

closest to Russia.

This is the first person

I speak to today.

I don't know

if I should keep filming

or try to calm her down.

I was wrong.

An hour later, shells do hit

this neighborhood.

There are no directives

to evacuate the city,

but some people

are leaving anyway.

I understand their anger.

Their country

is being attacked.

It's our country, too,

and we have to tell its story.

There are almost no real

bomb shelters in the city,

so people hide in the basements

of their apartment buildings.

Suddenly, the lights go out.

We send videos and photos

to our editors.

The war has begun.

Ukraine is now a nation at war.

190,000 Russian troops

and their proxies

coming from Ukraine's northern,

eastern and southern borders.

Russia is moving fast.

After Putin stopped speaking,

on cue, the missiles

and air strikes began.

Air raid sirens

sounded on and off.

Kharkiv in the east

and Mariupol in the south

both came under heavy fire.

There's real anger in the air.

The hatred for Vladimir Putin

is... is palpable.

February 26th.

This is

emergency broadcast system.

Russians are starting

to surround the city,

taking towns and blocking

the roads on the outskirts.

A quarter of the residents

have left.

But most decided to stay.

This is

Terrasport fitness center.

Now it's one of

the biggest improvised shelters

in the city.

People put tape on the mirrors

so fewer fragments are created

when bombs fall.

This woman,

she's the one I told

to stay home on the first day.

I apologize.

I'm glad she is okay.

As I

look at all these children,

I think about my daughters.

They also have to leave

their home because of this war.

News comes from

all over Ukraine,

and I cannot

get over the feeling

that something terrible is

going to happen to this city.

Missiles fired

at civilian locations,

according to the Ukrainians,

even though the Russians say

they are not

targeting civilians.

Their worst

nightmare coming true,

thousands of citizens

are trying to flee the country.

And those who are left behind

have filled bomb shelters

amid fears of rocket attacks overnight.

Ukrainian soldiers like these

have put up a stout defense

of Mariupol

because, as a large port,

it's economically vital,

and as a major city

just 30 miles from Russia,

it's strategic.

For both sides in this war,

it is quite a prize.

February 27th.

Soldiers are patrolling around

Emergency Hospital Number Two,

a couple kilometers

from the front line

on the edge of the city.

So far, Russians have not

been able to break through.

For the first time in Mariupol,

I hear a sound

of a fighter jet.

The soldiers are tense

and don't want to be filmed.

We're interrupted

by an ambulance siren.

Evangelina, four years old.

U.S. officials warn

that Russian forces are turning

to their old and brutal tactics

of laying siege to cities

while targeting civilians

and infrastructure from afar.

...these punishing artillery

and air strikes.

Heavy losses, as indiscriminate

shelling rain down

on apartment buildings,

the university in flames.

"Show this

to Putin," a doctor said

to an AP reporter.

The doctor wanted

Vladimir Putin to see, quote,

"the eyes of this child

and crying doctors."

Anyone wanting

to leave Mariupol

probably has to hit the road

by tomorrow,

after which the last route out

is expected to close.

March 2nd.

Russian strikes are

causing problems with Internet

and electricity.

All the

international journalists

we met in Mariupol have left.

But we decide to stick with

the medics for a few days.

We drive to the Left Bank,

where the heaviest fighting

is happening.

This woman was standing

on her balcony

when the shell hit the house

on the opposite side

of the street.

But shells don't just

hit the Left Bank.

These days, attacks happen

all across the city.

The boy was playing soccer

with his friends

when shelling started.

His legs were

completely blown off.

Ilya, 16 years old.

The front line is closing in.

We've sent

all the photos and videos.

Note to editors:

graphic content.

This is painful.

This is painful to watch.

But it must be

painful to watch.

In the port city of Mariupol,

local officials say hundreds

of casualties are now feared.

A father lost in grief

over the body of

his 16-year-old son Ilya.

The electricity's gone.

The Internet's gone.

The Russians are coming.

Mariupol awaits its fate.

March 3rd.

The shelling has reached

the neighborhood

around the hospital.

Patients are moved

away from the windows,

and day after day,

the conditions

in the hospital get worse.

This is one of the boys

who was hit

while playing soccer.

Doctors smile at him,

but I hear a whisper that his

leg may need to be amputated.

There are almost no antibiotics

left to stop the sepsis.

The Internet and phones

have stopped working,

and I'm sending

short dispatches to our editors

over the satellite phone.

The morgue is full, so doctors

store bodies in utility rooms.

We stay

and sleep in the hospital.

So far, it seems to be

the safest place.

From our observation point

on the seventh floor

of the hospital,

I see the battle

on the front line continues.

Russians are still trying

to break into the city.

Kyryl, 18 months old.

All night, we sit

on the seventh floor

of the hospital,

hoping to catch a connection,

to find a way

to get these images out.

Nothing works.

I think about all this country

has been through

over the past eight years,

all that I've filmed.

Revolution of Dignity.

Crimea's annexation.

Russia's invasion of Donbas.

MH17.

Donetsk airport siege.

War that seems endless.

Thousands have died.

We keep filming.

And things stay the same.

Worse even.

Propaganda turns everything

upside down.

I think about my daughters.

They were born into

a world at war.

I wish I could see them now.

But all I have is

a satellite phone

to make short calls to editors.

We tell them,

"Mariupol is under siege.

"Russians are

killing civilians.

"We are holding up.

Tell our families

we love them."

Evacuations of

two besieged cities in Ukraine

are being delayed

amid reports that

Russia is violating

a temporary cease-fire.

The city is surrounded by

Russian troops,

and there is no way out,

even for any humanitarian help.

The situation is

really dire in Mariupol.

A courier that was planned

to evacuate people from there,

and we've heard

that it has not happened,

that Russian forces have

continued to shell the city.

That's what the mayor has said.

Um, we have

no real-time information

of what's going on in the city.

This is the only radio signal

you can catch in Mariupol now.

Over the next weeks,

Russia will bomb buildings,

cut electricity,

water, supplies,

and finally, crucially,

the cell phone,

radio, television towers.

We have to get

out of the hospital

to try to find a connection,

to see what's happening

to the city.

March 4th.

A mall near the hospital

was destroyed.

As we search for a connection,

we go neighborhood

to neighborhood.

Houses we saw standing days ago

are destroyed.

We follow the smoke.

Houses hit by shells burn.

A humanitarian corridor

was opened on March 5th.

Vehicles fled the city,

only to be blocked

by Russian forces.

Then the road was closed.

Red Cross, police,

Ukrainian soldiers try to help

and calm people down.

The more people realize

that they are trapped,

the more desperate they grow.

The city

changed so much, so quickly.

When we were in the hospital,

one of the doctors told me,

"War is like an X-ray.

All human insides

become visible."

"Good people become better.

Bad people worse."

But I thought,

"It's not only the bombs,

lack of food, water.

"It's isolation, the inability

to contact relatives,

to find out what's happening

in other cities."

People charge cell phones

from a generator

just to use them

as flashlights.

Cut off.

We feel the same.

We still cannot send

our images.

That night,

as we watch artillery shooting,

our phones suddenly

pick up connection.

I split the footage into

ten-second clips,

set three phones

on the windowsill and send.

Bombs continued to rain down

on the southern Ukrainian city

of Mariupol,

which was fully surrounded

by Russian troops.

The Russians say

they aren't

targeting civilians.

This is 18-month-old Kyryl.

Medics try to save the boy.

They cannot.

March 9th.

Like a disease,

war is taking over the city.

We are back at the

Emergency Hospital Number Two.

The few city workers

that are still on duty

collect bodies to be buried.

I recognize this sheet.

It's Ilya, the boy who was

killed playing soccer.

Somewhere

among these black bags

lie the other children

we filmed.

Another truck arrives.

Bodies from the streets.

My brain will desperately

want to forget all this.

But the camera

will not let it happen.

The shock wave.

Ears and skin feel

the change of pressure.

We hide in the entryway

of a building

and wait for another strike,

praying it will not hit us.

We go

to the top of the building

and see the smoke

just a few blocks away.

It's a hospital.

I try to find out

how many dead and wounded

there are.

But in this chaos,

nobody can answer.

The name of the police officer

speaking to us is Vladimir.

He wants to make a statement.

And then he asks once more.

Russian troops commit...

...war crimes.

Our family, our womens,

our children need helps.

Our people needs help

from international society.

Please help Mariupol.

Vladimir showed us

the only place in the city

where we could catch a signal

and send the images.

Outside a looted grocery store

on Budivel'nykiv Avenue.

Air strikes are

happening constantly.

Vladimir said the footage

from the maternity hospital

will change the course

of the war.

But we have seen

so many dead people.

Dead children.

How could more death

change anything?

Air strikes on

the southern city of Mariupol

destroyed a children's

and maternity hospital.

For once,

the aftermath of a bombing,

here at the city's

maternity hospital,

was filmed

for the world to see.

Horror and devastation.

This is clearly the worst

and most egregious attack

we have seen

in this war so far.

The Associated

Press also reports

that city workers

have had to create

a mass grave to bury the dead.

And Ukrainian

President Volodymyr Zelensky

calling this attack

a war crime.

March 10th.

The city is still being bombed.

And now I can also hear

heavy machine guns.

That means Russians

have entered the city.

Vladimir, the officer

we met yesterday, is with us.

The last

functioning fire department

in the city destroyed by

another air strike.

I don't know if he survived.

We try not to stay long

in one place.

The biggest university

in the city was destroyed, too.

New wounds every day.

We drive back to catch a signal

at the spot

on Budivel'nykiv Avenue.

It's still the only place

where you can get Internet.

It's past curfew,

so Vladimir accompanies us.

We check the news

and speak to editors.

Sorry, what?

Hold on. Hold on.

It's coming back. Hold on.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

This motherfucker

is flying around.

Hold on. I can hear him.

I-I don't think

there has been a moment today

when there was not-not

an airplane in the air.

And, uh...

I give them the latest.

But there are

disturbing updates for us.

Okay.

These

women's stories have epitomized

the tragedy unfolding

in Ukraine.

And yet, even their suffering

has been questioned,

with Russian officials

claiming on Twitter

and in news programs

that they must be actors.

This maternity

hospital had already been

seized by the Azov Battalion

and other radicals.

All the pregnant women,

all the nurses,

all the service personnel were

already expelled from there.

This is information terrorism.

We hoped

that the pregnant woman

on the stretcher survived.

So we went to search for her

and other victims at the

Emergency Hospital Number Two.

Soldiers are guarding

the entrance.

Vladimir says

this is the red zone now.

The Russians have entered

the neighborhood.

So he comes with us.

Floor by floor, we search

for the pregnant women.

There is no maternity ward, so

we try the surgery department.

Surgeons are overwhelmed

and low on painkillers.

This piece of shrapnel

was taken from a patient.

Finally,

we find one of the doctors

who treated the woman

on the stretcher.

Her name was Iryna.

They said she screamed,

"Kill me,"

when they brought her.

She knew her child was dead.

Other survivors are here.

One of them

has just given birth.

Another is taken

to an operating room.

She lost part of her foot

in the bombing

and doctors worry

about the child.

We have to leave.

But the corridors

are filled with people

who lost homes, relatives.

We head

to the exit, but it's too late.

Soldiers say a sniper

just shot and injured a nurse

in front of the hospital.

Two soldiers are still trapped.

We hear a low rumble.

So we run to the seventh floor,

to our observation point.

It's risky.

They can open fire at

upper floors of the hospital.

But from here, we can see more.

They are coming closer.

If reinforcements don't arrive,

the soldiers downstairs

will not be able to stop them.

They will take over

the hospital.

What should we do?

We need to send

all this footage.

Survivors from

the maternity bombing.

Tanks shooting

at residential areas.

There is no connection here.

And we can't get to our car.

And if we get caught,

Vladimir says,

"Russians will make you say

everything you published

was a lie."

The night is sleepless.

Feverish thoughts of

past, present and future

race through my mind.

I want all of this to stop,

but I have no power over it.

My memory keeps carrying me

back home and back to war.

If someday my daughters ask me,

"What did you do

to stop this madness,

this sadistic virus

of destruction?"

...I want to be able

to give them an answer.

This is

a special military task force.

All night,

we hid inside the hospital,

and Vladimir used

the last of his radio's battery

to contact them.

This morning, they broke into

the surgery department

to rescue us.

They said we were

already behind enemy lines.

We are still wearing the scrubs

the doctors gave us,

in case Russians entered

the hospital that night.

We run,

abandoning the doctors

who have sheltered us,

pregnant women

who had been shelled,

the people who live

in hospital corridors

because they have

nowhere else to go.

The Russians

took over the hospital

a few hours after we escaped.

They've taken the Left Bank,

except the Azovstal

steel factory.

And they are closing in

on the city center.

Ukrainian forces fight back,

but they are outnumbered.

The city is slowly dying

like a human being.

On the day we escaped

from the hospital,

the military task force

moved us and Vladimir

to an area

still under Ukrainian control.

And for days, we tried to find

a way to get out of the city

with all the footage.

March 13th.

Shelling of

residential areas continues.

Without any information,

people don't know who to blame.

Vladimir keeps insisting

we need to find a way to leave.

But we no longer have our van.

It was left behind

in the hospital.

And anyone who drives us with

our cameras and hard drives

through miles

of occupied territory

would be taking a risk.

On March 15th,

our editors send us a message:

"Yesterday, some people

were able to leave

"with a Red Cross convoy,

and there is another one

leaving today."

We go to the last functioning

hospital in the city.

The Red Cross convoy has left.

I wish I could do more.

Stay longer.

But we need to leave.

One of the doctors tells us

to follow him to the basement.

We need

to catch up with the convoy.

Vladimir says he can try

to take us with his car.

I tell him it's dangerous.

But he wants to help to get us

and our materials out.

And he still hopes

if the world saw everything

that happened in Mariupol,

it would give at least

some meaning to this horror.

Vladimir's car

was damaged by shelling

but miraculously still runs.

We are with his family.

We make it through

100 kilometers

of occupied territory

and 15 Russian checkpoints,

cameras and hard drives

hidden under seats.

By dawn, we finally catch up

with the Red Cross convoy.

Yesterday, I told one of

the officers who extracted us

from the hospital,

"Thank you for saving us."

He said, "Thank you for telling

the story of this city."

And yet, as we drive away,

I keep thinking about

all the people

whose tragedies

will remain unknown.

I will see my daughters.

And I can only hope

that these people survive

and will be

with their families, too.

The total number of refugees

who have fled Ukraine so far

is now nearing three million.

And Russians

continue to strangle

and starve Mariupol.

Got some

new video this morning

of 2,000 cars

that officials say managed

to make it out of Mariupol

through a humanitarian corridor

that Russia did not renege on.

Devastating images are now

emerging from Mariupol, where

the mayor says the death toll

could be as high as 20,000

since the war began.

Leaving people

without supply lines

for food or water,

without Internet connection

to the outside world.

It was a tragedy.

This woman and her unborn child

later died.

And we know about

the atrocities that have been

happening inside Mariupol

because of journalists

from the Associated Press.

The only international

reporters to remain

after the Russian bombardment

bore witness

to what have become

indelible images of the war.

AP reporters on the ground

showed the world

a mass grave in Mariupol.

I'm talking about

narrow trenches in Mariupol

with babies' bodies in them.

AP... AP journalists

have been there.

I've seen so many fakes.

Who wins the-the information

war, the one who wins the war.

Do you really, truly believe

this? -

Do you truly believe

what you're saying?