With pride and hope, Ukraine celebrates the Oscar win for the Mariupol documentary

Streets and squares are changed from Ukrainian names to Soviet-era names. Only Russian passport holders have access to healthcare and social services. Teachers have been forced to switch to Russian curricula.

The Ukrainian port city of Mariupol has been a symbol of Russia’s brutal invasion and occupation of large parts of Ukrainian territory. But as the war rages on and Moscow tries to make the city an example of Russification, Mariupol’s fate threatens to fade from the world’s consciousness.

So it was with satisfaction and hope that Ukraine on Monday celebrated winning its first-ever Oscar for the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” which chronicles the brutality of the Russian siege of the city in the spring of 2022.

The film’s Oscar, the Ukrainians say, could help refocus attention on the tortured city and the war in general, at a time when help from allies is uncertain and Russian forces are regaining ground .

“’20 Days in Mariupol’ is a film that shows the truth about Russian terrorism,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement rack Monday on Telegram. It allows us to speak loudly about Russia’s war against Ukraine, he said.

Mr. Zelensky and other officials said the documentary, filmed by Associated Press journalists, had helped debunk Moscow’s claims that its forces had committed no crimes. It shows medics desperately trying to save children hit by Russian shells, residents boiling snow for water and digging ditches to bury corpses.

These images are in stark contrast to the images the Kremlin propaganda machine has tried to project, claiming that the siege of Mariupol spared civilians and that the occupied city is now flourishing under Russian rule.

Mariupol, a city of half a million inhabitants before the war, was severely damaged during the fighting. A recent one study by Human Rights Watch and several organizations found that 93 percent of high-rise buildings in a central zone of five square kilometers were damaged or destroyed.

After occupying the city, Russian authorities began reconstruction, bulldozing some damaged houses and replacing them with new ones. These efforts are being celebrated by the Russian news media as proof that the city is flourishing thanks to investment from Moscow.

But Western news reports have shown that the reconstruction has been essentially cosmetic, leaving residents in a Potemkin village with poorly constructed housing.

“It is shocking to understand how such a beautiful Ukrainian city turned into something inhabited by Russian people in cardboard houses, without utilities, and with great suffering for the Ukrainian people,” said Julia Kastan, 29, a resident of Kiev , the Ukrainian capital. Monday.

The Human Rights Watch report also highlighted the heavy toll of Russia’s assault on Mariupol, which lasted from February to May 2022, when the last Ukrainian defenders in the sprawling Azovstal steel plant surrendered. It documented 8,000 deaths from combat or war-related causes, although the actual number is likely much higher.

According to the report, Russian air and artillery strikes have hit civilian locations including hospitals, residential buildings and food storage and distribution centers.

After the images were released in the early days of the war, Russia began an intense propaganda campaign, claiming they were fake or that the hospital was protecting Ukrainian troops.

But the images sparked global outrage and epitomized the brutality of the Russian invasion.

‘The world saw the truth about Russia’s crimes’ Andriy Ermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office told Telegram on Monday. “Our film broke the enemy propaganda.”

Several Kiev residents said they hoped the documentary would help draw attention to the current situation in Mariupol, which Russia is recreating in its image.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the occupiers had renamed streets and squares in Russian and forced teachers to agree to teach a Russian curriculum.

“As in other Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, those who dare to oppose these changes, or who speak out against the war and occupation, risk arbitrarily detaining, imprisoning or forcibly disappearing,” it said report.

The British Ministry of Military Intelligence said this on Monday in a message on X that the Kremlin “pursued a ruthless Russification policy” in occupied Ukrainian territory.

For example, in those areas, access to social services and health care depends on possession of a Russian passport, and those who do not have one after July 1 will be considered foreign citizens or stateless persons and could be deported, the report said. According to military intelligence, about 2.8 million people in the territories have Russian passports.

“When I hear the word Mariupol, tears immediately come to my eyes,” Iryna Lavrenkova, a resident of Kiev, said on Monday.

Daria Mitiuk reporting contributed.