Original subtitles

♪ ♪

(quiet clattering)

(indistinct chatter)

MSTYSLAV CHERNOV: 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.

CHERNOV: I have no illusions about what will happen to us if we are caught.

♪ ♪

-(rain pouring) -(windshield wipers flapping)

CHERNOV: 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.

(air raid siren wailing)

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: 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.

(vehicle door slams)

CHERNOV: This is the first person I speak to today.

(woman crying)

I don't know if I should keep filming or try to calm her down.

(people shouting)

CHERNOV: I was wrong.

An hour later, shells do hit this neighborhood.

(dog barking)

(man shouting in Ukrainian)

(chatter continues)

CHERNOV: There are no directives to evacuate the city,

but some people are leaving anyway.

CHERNOV: I understand their anger.

Their country is being attacked.

It's our country, too,

and we have to tell its story.

(air raid siren wailing)

There are almost no real bomb shelters in the city,

so people hide in the basements of their apartment buildings.

(baby cries)

Suddenly, the lights go out.

(people chattering)

(baby fussing)

(baby cries)

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: We send videos and photos to our editors.

The war has begun.

REPORTER: 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.

REPORTER 2: After Putin stopped speaking,

on cue, the missiles and air strikes began.

REPORTER 3: Air raid sirens sounded on and off.

Kharkiv in the east and Mariupol in the south

both came under heavy fire.

REPORTER 4: There's real anger in the air.

The hatred for Vladimir Putin is... is palpable.

(woman speaking Ukrainian over loudspeaker)

CHERNOV: 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 chattering)

People put tape on the mirrors so fewer fragments are created

when bombs fall.

CHERNOV: This woman,

she's the one I told to stay home on the first day.

CHERNOV: I apologize.

I'm glad she is okay.

CHERNOV: 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.

REPORTER: Missiles fired at civilian locations,

according to the Ukrainians,

even though the Russians say

they are not targeting civilians.

REPORTER 2: 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.

REPORTER 3: 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.

CHERNOV: 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.

(men shouting)

(shouting continues)

CHERNOV: For the first time in Mariupol,

I hear a sound of a fighter jet.

(men conversing)

CHERNOV: The soldiers are tense

and don't want to be filmed.

(siren wailing)

CHERNOV: We're interrupted by an ambulance siren.

(urgent chatter)

(woman shouting)

(woman crying)

(urgent chatter)

-(chatter quiets) -(sniffling)

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: Evangelina, four years old.

REPORTER: 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.

REPORTER 2: ...these punishing artillery

and air strikes.

Heavy losses, as indiscriminate shelling rain down

on apartment buildings,

the university in flames.

REPORTER 3: "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."

REPORTER 4: Anyone wanting to leave Mariupol

probably has to hit the road by tomorrow,

after which the last route out is expected to close.

(quiet chatter)

CHERNOV: March 2nd.

Russian strikes are causing problems with Internet

and electricity.

CHERNOV: 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.

(sighs)

CHERNOV: This woman was standing

on her balcony when the shell hit the house

on the opposite side of the street.

(siren wailing)

But shells don't just hit the Left Bank.

These days, attacks happen all across the city.

♪ ♪

(urgent chatter)

(woman gasping, shouting)

(urgent chatter continues)

(man shouting instructions)

-(man crying) -(urgent chatter continues)

CHERNOV: The boy was playing soccer

with his friends when shelling started.

His legs were completely blown off.

(quiet chatter)

(sobbing)

(wailing)

(sobbing and wailing continues)

CHERNOV: Ilya, 16 years old.

(distant explosions echoing)

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.

REPORTER: In the port city of Mariupol,

local officials say hundreds of casualties are now feared.

REPORTER 2: A father lost in grief

over the body of his 16-year-old son Ilya.

REPORTER 3: The electricity's gone.

The Internet's gone.

The Russians are coming.

Mariupol awaits its fate.

-(missile whooshing) -(distant explosions)

CHERNOV: March 3rd.

CHERNOV: The shelling has reached

the neighborhood around the hospital.

(explosions echoing)

(women crying and chattering quietly)

CHERNOV: Patients are moved away from the windows,

and day after day,

the conditions in the hospital get worse.

(people conversing)

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.

(women conversing)

CHERNOV: 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.

(quiet chatter, light laughter)

CHERNOV: We stay and sleep in the hospital.

So far, it seems to be the safest place.

(distant explosions echoing)

CHERNOV: 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.

(people shouting)

CHERNOV: Kyryl, 18 months old.

(urgent chatter)

(machinery beeping)

(woman weeping)

(woman wailing)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: 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.

(distant explosions echoing)

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."

♪ ♪

REPORTER: 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.

(man speaking on radio)

CHERNOV: 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.

(explosions ringing)

(alarms blaring)

(explosions continue)

CHERNOV: March 4th.

A mall near the hospital was destroyed.

CHERNOV: As we search for a connection,

we go neighborhood to neighborhood.

Houses we saw standing days ago are destroyed.

(sobbing)

CHERNOV: 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.

CHERNOV: Red Cross, police,

Ukrainian soldiers try to help and calm people down.

(people conversing worriedly)

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: The more people realize

that they are trapped,

the more desperate they grow.

(people chattering)

(sobbing)

CHERNOV: 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."

CHERNOV: "Good people become better.

Bad people worse."

(man laughs)

CHERNOV: 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.

(playful chatter, humming)

(woman singing)

(chatter continues)

(crying)

(sniffling)

(baby crying)

(explosions echoing)

CHERNOV: 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.

REPORTER: Bombs continued to rain down

on the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol,

which was fully surrounded by Russian troops.

REPORTER 2: The Russians say they aren't targeting civilians.

This is 18-month-old Kyryl.

REPORTER 3: Medics try to save the boy.

They cannot.

CHERNOV: March 9th.

Like a disease, war is taking over the city.

(quiet chatter)

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.

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: Somewhere among these black bags

lie the other children we filmed.

(chatter continues)

♪ ♪

(panting)

CHERNOV: Another truck arrives.

Bodies from the streets.

(distant explosions echoing)

My brain will desperately want to forget all this.

But the camera will not let it happen.

(explosion ringing)

(glass shattering)

(alarms blaring)

CHERNOV: 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.

(explosions echoing)

(alarms blaring)

(knocking)

CHERNOV: We go to the top of the building

and see the smoke just a few blocks away.

It's a hospital.

(people shouting)

(sobbing)

(urgent chatter continues)

♪ ♪

(men shouting in distance)

(radio chatter)

CHERNOV: I try to find out

how many dead and wounded there are.

But in this chaos, nobody can answer.

(urgent chatter)

(people conversing)

CHERNOV: The name of the police officer

speaking to us is Vladimir.

He wants to make a statement.

CHERNOV: 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.

CHERNOV: Vladimir showed us

the only place in the city

where we could catch a signal and send the images.

CHERNOV: Outside a looted grocery store

on Budivel'nykiv Avenue.

(distant explosions echoing)

(glass and stone clattering underfoot)

CHERNOV: Air strikes are happening constantly.

CHERNOV: 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?

♪ ♪

REPORTER: Air strikes on the southern city of Mariupol

destroyed a children's and maternity hospital.

REPORTER 2: For once, the aftermath of a bombing,

here at the city's maternity hospital,

was filmed for the world to see.

REPORTER 3: Horror and devastation.

This is clearly the worst and most egregious attack

we have seen in this war so far.

(speaking Spanish)

(reporter speaking Japanese)

REPORTER 4: The Associated Press also reports

that city workers have had to create

a mass grave to bury the dead.

REPORTER 5: And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

calling this attack a war crime.

(distant gunfire ringing)

CHERNOV: March 10th.

(explosion echoing loudly)

-(alarms blaring) -(explosion echoing)

The city is still being bombed.

And now I can also hear heavy machine guns.

(gunfire echoing)

That means Russians have entered the city.

(loud explosions echoing)

(car alarm wailing)

Vladimir, the officer we met yesterday, is with us.

CHERNOV: The last functioning fire department

in the city destroyed by another air strike.

(quiet chatter)

(machinery whirring)

(explosion echoing)

CHERNOV: 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.

CHERNOV: New wounds every day.

(debris crunching underfoot)

(metallic objects clattering)

CHERNOV: 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.

(cell phone chimes)

It's past curfew, so Vladimir accompanies us.

CHERNOV: We check the news and speak to editors.

CHERNOV: Sorry, what?

Hold on. Hold on.

(explosion echoing)

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...

CHERNOV: I give them the latest.

But there are disturbing updates for us.

Okay.

REPORTER: 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.

(translated): 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.

(translated): This is information terrorism.

CHERNOV: 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.

(gunfire echoing)

So he comes with us.

(gunfire echoing)

Floor by floor, we search for the pregnant women.

There is no maternity ward, so we try the surgery department.

(people conversing)

(woman shouting in pain)

Surgeons are overwhelmed and low on painkillers.

(woman shouting in pain)

This piece of shrapnel was taken from a patient.

CHERNOV: Finally, we find one of the doctors

who treated the woman on the stretcher.

CHERNOV: 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.

-(urgent chatter) -(machines beeping)

-(baby crying) -(excited shouting, clapping)

(baby continues crying)

(distant explosions echoing)

(distant explosion echoes)

CHERNOV: We have to leave.

But the corridors are filled with people

who lost homes, relatives.

(woman sniffling)

(woman sobbing, breathing unsteadily)

(crying)

♪ ♪

CHERNOV: 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.

CHERNOV: Two soldiers are still trapped.

(gunfire echoes)

(gunfire continues)

(man coughs)

(man speaking over radio)

CHERNOV: We hear a low rumble.

CHERNOV: 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.

(explosion echoing)

(explosion echoing)

(gunfire echoes)

CHERNOV: 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.

CHERNOV: 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.

(brisk footsteps)

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.

(breathing heavily)

(men shouting)

(explosion echoing)

(explosion echoing)

CHERNOV: We are still wearing the scrubs

the doctors gave us,

in case Russians entered the hospital that night.

(door squeaking open)

(breathing heavily)

(explosion echoing)

(explosion echoing)

(explosion echoing)

(explosion echoing)

(explosion echoing)

(debris crunching underfoot)

CHERNOV: 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.

(distant explosion echoing)

-(man shouts) -(explosion echoing)

♪ ♪

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.

-(people shouting) -(child screaming)

March 13th.

Shelling of residential areas continues.

(people chattering)

(crying)

(people conversing worriedly)

(sobbing)

CHERNOV: Without any information,

people don't know who to blame.

(debris clattering)

CHERNOV: 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.

(man clears throat)

The Red Cross convoy has left.

-(distant gunfire) -(explosions echoing)

(man groaning in pain)

(man screaming in pain)

CHERNOV: 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.

(distant explosion echoes)

(debris crunches underfoot)

CHERNOV: 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.

(car horn honking)

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.

♪ ♪

REPORTER: The total number of refugees

who have fled Ukraine so far is now nearing three million.

REPORTER 2: And Russians continue to strangle

and starve Mariupol.

REPORTER 3: 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.

REPORTER 4: 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.

(reporters speaking in various languages)

REPORTER 3: Leaving people without supply lines

for food or water, without Internet connection

to the outside world.

REPORTER 5: It was a tragedy.

This woman and her unborn child later died.

REPORTER 6: 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.

WOMAN: 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? -(reporters clamoring)

Do you truly believe what you're saying?

♪ ♪

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(music fades)