Mstyslav Chernov

Mstyslav Chernov was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with ‘Why? Why? Why?’ Ukraine’s Mariupol descends into despair. 

AP video journalist Chernov is a Ukrainian-born photographer, photojournalist, and filmmaker. Chernov began working for the Associated Press in 2014, covering the Ukrainian war, then the European migration crisis. He has traveled to more than 50 countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has won number international awards for his work, including the George Polk Award for War Reporting, Bayeux Calvados-Normandy awards, the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award and the Royal Television Society Camera Operator of the Year award. He also directed the AP-Frontline documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the coveted World Cinema Documentary Competition Audience Award.  Chernov and his colleague Evegeniy Maloletka were the last international journalists in Mariupol when Russian troops attacked. Driving a van with windows blown out by explosions, snatching a bit of battery power where they can to file videos and photos, and checking in during rare moments when there was enough of a network signal, the two journalists were the world’s only eyes on a city that was my to the Russian attack on Ukraine.