Ukraine wakes up to another day of war, but with the news that it won an Oscar

Ukraine woke up on Monday to another day of war, with Russian attacks on Kharkiv and Odessa, but also with the news that it had won its first Oscar.

The news that the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” – a chilling account by AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov – won the Oscar was bittersweet for Ukraine.

“This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history, and I feel honored” an emotional Chernov said Sunday night at the Oscars. “I will probably be the only director on this stage who will say that I would rather never have made this film, I would rather trade this for the fact that Russia had never attacked Ukraine.”.

In Ukraine, there was applause for the documentary, for exposing the brutal devastation of war and for the message Chernov conveyed to the world from one of its most famous settings.

“The first Oscar in (Ukrainian) history. And how important is this today?”Andriy Yermak, director of the Presidential Office, declared on Telegram. “The world has seen the truth about Russia’s crimes. Justice always prevails”.

The filmmaking team of “20 Days in Mariupol— Chernov, the photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and the producer Vasilisa Stepanenko – arrived in that city just an hour before Russia began bombing it. Two weeks later, they were the last journalists from an international organization in the city, sending crucial dispatches about civilian casualties, the digging of mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital and the scale of the devastation.

The film was a joint work between AP and the program “Frontline” from PBS. The statuettes went to Chernov, producer and editor Michelle Mizner and producer Raney Aronson-Rath. The Oscar — and the nomination — were a first for both Chernov, an AP videographer, and the 178-year-old news organization. It was the third nomination and first Oscar win for “Frontline”.

Yermak thanked the entire team who worked on the film, “for reminding the world that war continues and evil still exists”.

Ukraine’s human rights chief Dmytro Lubinets praised the documentary for showing “the truth to the whole world.”

“This awards ceremony is an opportunity to speak to millions of people. That’s what the director of the film did when mentioning the occupation, prisoners of war, Russia’s killings of Ukrainians and illegal kidnappings of civilians.“Lubinets wrote on Telegram.

The Oscar – one of many awards the documentary has received, including the Pulitzer – comes as the war enters its third year, and as Ukraine is running out of ammunition and Russian forces are pushing deeper into the Donetsk region. in the west and in the Kharkiv region in the north.

Meanwhile, drone strikes hit two buildings, a hotel and a municipal building in Kharkiv, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said. No victims were reported.