Three AP journalists defy shelling and siege to document a city in the crosshairs.
Rarely is the difference so stark between news organizations that subscribe to the AP and those that don’t. That’s down to the tireless efforts of AP staffers around the world who have reported, edited, planned, provisioned and advised to make our coverage of Ukraine truly stellar. And it’s especially true in the coverage of a single city that has seen some of the war’s worst horrors.
AP’s Germany-based video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and freelance producer Vasilisa Stepanenko have been the only international journalists to chronicle the tragedies of Mariupol. The team was recognized with last week’s Best of the Week award, and their unflinching coverage continued, the world riveted not only by their presence, but by their stunning journalism. Amid the chaos, they have found stories so moving — and told them so compellingly — that it’s impossible to tell the broader story of Ukraine without them.
“Their images,” wrote Nick Schifrin of PBS NewsHour, “are defining this war.”
Chief among those are pictures of heavily pregnant women, wounded by a Russian attack, being evacuated from a maternity hospital. The photos were on front pages around the world, and the video led newscasts everywhere. Chernov and Maloletka followed up later from another hospital where the women were taken, finding that one of the women had died, her baby stillborn; the other had given birth to a healthy girl. They also captured the birth of a baby girl to a third woman wounded in the attack: Little Alana wasn’t breathing when she emerged, but after some tense moments the operating room erupted in cheers and tears when she suddenly let out a cry. Moments later, a nurse shielded the newborn in a doorway as the operating room shook from the impact of more shelling.
Ukrainian emergency responders and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from a maternity hospital severely damaged by Russian shelling in Mariupol, March 9, 2022. The woman and her unborn child later died.
Ukrainian soldiers and emergency responders work at a crater outside a Mariupol maternity hospital severely damaged by Russian shelling, March 9, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Pregnant woman Mariana Vishegirskaya makes her way from a maternity hospital severely damaged by Russian shelling on Mariupol, March 9, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Mariana Vishegirskaya evacuates a maternity hospital that was severely damaged by Russian shelling on Mariupol, March 9, 2022. She was transferred to another hospital.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Mariana Vishegirskaya holds her newborn daughter Veronika in a Mariupol hospital, March 11, 2022, two days after surviving a Russian attack on a maternity hospital in the city.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Mariana Vishegirskaya lies in a hospital bed after giving birth to her daughter Veronika, who is held by her husband Yuri in a Mariupol hospital, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
People take cover in an alcove of an apartment building during Russian shelling in Mariupol, March 13, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Russian tanks move down a street on the outskirts of the besieged city of Mariupol, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A shell fired by a Russian tank explodes at an apartment building in the besieged city of Mariupol, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
An apartment building burns after it was hit by shelling of a residential district in Mariupol, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman holds a baby in a bomb shelter in Mariupol, March 8, 2022.
A Ukrainian serviceman takes a photograph of a damaged church after shelling in a residential district of Mariupol, March 10, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A women covers herself with a blanket near a damaged fire truck after shelling in Mariupol, March 10, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman walks past a building severely damaged by shelling in Mariupol, March 13, 2022. The besieged city remained cut off despite talks on creating aid or evacuation convoys.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Firefighters help a woman to evacuate from an apartment building severely damaged by shelling in Mariupol, March 10, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
People line up to get water at a well on the outskirts of Mariupol, March 9, 2022. The city had been under siege for a week with no electricity, gas or water.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
People queue to receive hot food in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol, March 7, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman walks past a burning apartment building after shelling in Mariupol, March 13, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman waits with her daughter for her husband to evacuate from a burning apartment in Mariupol, March 13, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Mortuary workers transfer a dead body on the outskirts of Mariupol, March 9, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Dead bodies are dropped into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol as the city came under Russian shelling, March 9, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A man walks with a bicycle on a street damaged by shelling in Mariupol, March 10, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Anastasia Erashova cries as she hugs her child in a corridor of a hospital in Mariupol, March 11, 2022. Erashova’s other child was killed during Russian shelling of the city.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Women and children sit on the floor in a corridor of a Mariupol hospital, March 11, 2022. Repeated efforts to evacuate people from the city of 430,000 had fallen apart as humanitarian convoys come under shelling.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Serhiy Kralya, 41, injured during Russian shelling, is bandaged after surgery at a hospital in Mariupol, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Medical workers hold a newborn girl Alana close to her mother after a cesarean section at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 11, 2022. Alana’s mother had to be evacuated from another maternity hospital and lost some of her toes after it was shelled.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Premature babies who were left behind by their parents lay in bed at city hospital 3 in Mariupol, March 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Medical workers pose for a photo at a hospital in Mariupol, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A police officer at city hospital 3 in Mariupol shows the covered bodies of people killed by shelling, March 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
Bodies of people killed by shelling lay covered outside city hospital 3 in Mariupol, March 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A police officer at city hospital 3 in Mariupol shows the covered bodies of people killed by shelling, March 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman reacts inside city hospital 3 in Mariupol, March 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka
The day after the attack on the hospital, Chernov and Maloletka followed some of the victims to a mass grave, where workers dumped bodies into a pit, so overwhelmed were they by the number of dead. They captured dramatic images of Russian tanks pounding an apartment building. They showed rescuers pulling a woman from the rubble of one attack, and comforting a partially buried boy nearby as the life sapped out of him. They covered looting. They covered scavenging. They even covered a man chasing an escaped guinea pig down the street.
Most of all, they covered fear: people huddled in bomb shelters and hallways, shaking and screaming with desperation in the knowledge that there was nowhere to escape to.
The team’s work resonated globally:
On Wednesday night, Britain’s ITV dedicated the first six minutes of its flagship “News at Ten” program to a compendium of the team’s work, calling out the AP three times during the segment and — in an unprecedented move — ending by naming Chernov, Maloletka and Stepanenko as “The Associated Press team risking their safety to film these harrowing pictures.”
“The Morning” newsletter of The New York Times had this to say:
”Since the war began, two of the few working journalists in Mariupol have been Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka of The Associated Press. My colleagues and I were deeply affected by their dispatch, and we’re turning over the lead section of today’s newsletter to an excerpt from it.“
— David Leonhardt, “The Morning” newsletter
And AP Executive Editor Julie Pace told Vanity Fair for a piece on Chernov and Maloletka, “This is a story that they are telling from the perspective of people who are watching their country be attacked. Covering this is personal for them, and they have felt a real responsibility to make sure that the world is seeing what’s happening.“
For courageous, must-have coverage from the heart of the world’s biggest story, AP recognizes the team of Chernov, Maloletka and Stepanenko as this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
Visit AP.org to request a trial subscription to AP's video, photo and text services.
For breaking news, visit apnews.com
