Till this time, I had seen many deaths in the hospital, corpses on the streets, dozens of bodies thrown to the mass grave. I saw so many deaths that I was filming them not taking too close to my heart.

Two airstrikes targeted plastic that was used as a protection for our van. I had noticed a fire ball just before the pain struck my inner ear, my skin and my face.
We saw smoke rising above the maternity hospital. When we got there, the rescuers were still taking wounded and bleeding pregnant women out of the ruins.

Our camera batteries were almost dead and we had no network connection to send images. There were some minutes left before the curfew would begin. The policeman overheard us discussing how to inform about the explosion of the hospital.
“This will turn the tide of the war.” - he said. He took us to the place with electricity and the Internet.

We filmed so many dead people and dead children, an endless number. I couldn’t understand why he thought that more deaths would change something.
I was wrong.

In the darkness we sent images and video, having divided it into three parts to speed up the process. It took several hours. The curfew began long time ago, bombing continued but policemen, appointed to accompany us around the city, were waiting patiently.

Then our network connection with the world beyond Mariupol broke down.
We came back to the empty cellar under the hotel where the aquarium was, now with dead goldfish. Being isolated, we didn’t know about the Russian campaign of disinformation, pointed at our work discreditation.

Mstislav Chernov