'20 Days in Mariupol' Is a Harrowing, Must-Watch Look at the Russian Siege of a Ukrainian City

Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the city of Mariupol was home to more than 425,000 people. Since Russian forces laid siege to the city in the earliest days of the invasion, Ukraine estimates less than a quarter of its population remains. The rest have been killed in the fighting, deported or internally displaced.

As Russian troops laid siege to Mariupol, Ukrainian reporters working for The Associated Press refused to flee the city, knowing they were the only international journalists still there. They stayed put and documented Russian war crimes against Mariupol's civilian population. A new documentary film, "20 Days in Mariupol," was captured by reporters on the ground during the first days of the siege.

The result of their work is a gripping and emotionally charged film that offers a stark and unflinching look at the harrowing realities of war and its profound impact on the lives of civilians caught in its crossfire.

Directed by AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, the film was produced with the help of his AP colleagues, Evgeniy Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko. It documents the initial Russian attack on the city as well as alleged atrocities, such as mass graves for the bodies of slain children and the bombing of a hospital maternity ward. The film also documents how the team escaped from the besieged city.

An experienced war reporter, Chernov has covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria and Gaza. He said he came to Mariupol before the invasion started, because he knew it would be an important target for the Russians. They arrived in Mariupol one hour before Russian tanks rolled across the border.

"... already back then, we knew that it might be surrounded just because of its location and there will be a siege," Chernov told PBS reporter Eunice Alpasan. "So we were preparing for it in advance. Obviously, you can't prepare for everything in war, but we had an understanding of what might be waiting for us. ... We were terrified, but at the same time, we were sure that we are in the right place."

Russian forces fought their way to Mariupol on the first day of the invasion, Feb. 24, 2022. The defending Ukrainian forces held out until May 20, when the last defenders were forced to surrender. Russia has controlled the city ever since, and Mariupol is deep inside Russian-occupied territory.

Chernov, Maloletka, Stepanenko and another AP colleague, Lori Hinnant, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for their work documenting the Siege of Mariupol, but the limited internet access meant that only a small portion of their video from inside the city made it out during their time. "20 Days in Mariupol" is a film that takes what wasn't fully reported and turns it into a real, often hard-to-watch narrative of the fighting.

Simply put: ​​It's not for the faint of heart. The film is filled with real, graphic images of the war, and it doesn't pull punches when showing the horrifying toll the fighting took on the civilian population.

"I think the nature of how hard it is to watch this film is not in the graphic images ... the emotional impact of the images, that is what hits hard," Cherbov said. "At the same time, it was very hard to find this balance between showing the war, how it really is and not sanitizing anything, and at the same time not pushing the audience away, by not overwhelming the audience with grief and pain so that people become desensitized to this."

"20 Days in Mariupol" is currently in theaters for limited release. To learn more about the film or find a screening, visit the official website.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, or on LinkedIn.

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