Associated Press video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka arrived in Mariupol, Ukraine, in the early hours of Feb. 24. An hour later, Russia’s war on its neighbour started. Chernov recounts what he and his colleague witnessed and how they escaped from the city as Russians were hunting them down.
Highlights
- Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka were the only international journalists left in Mariupol.
- They had been documenting the siege of the Ukrainian city by Russian troops for more than two weeks.
- They were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors.
- The walls of the surgery shook from artillery and machine-gun fire outside, and it seemed safer to stay inside.
- But the Ukrainian soldiers were under orders to take us with them with them.
- The officer, who had once begged us to show the world his dying city, now pleaded with us to go.