Three Ukrainian journalists win the 2023 Pulitzer Prize

Ukrainian journalists Yevhen Maloletka, Mstyslav Chernov and Vasylisa Stepanenko, who filmed their reports in the besieged Mariupol, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. The winners were announced on May 8, Radio Liberty reports.

“Columbia University today announces the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes... Associated Press, for the work of Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko and Lori Hinnant. Courageous reporting from the besieged city of Mariupol that bore witness to the slaughter of civilians in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine," the award's website writes.

They won in two categories: Public Service and Breaking News Photography (as part of the Associated Press team).

"A team of AP journalists arrived in Mariupol in late February 2022. By the time they left nearly three weeks later, the besieged Ukrainian port city lay in ruins. Their work has been honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service," the agency noted.

The Pulitzer Prize is given by Columbia University. It is considered one of the most prestigious world awards in the field of journalism. The first laureate of the award in 1917 was the American journalist Herbert Swope. He received the prestigious prize for a series of publications under the title "Inside the German Empire" in The New York World.

As reported by IMI, on March 22, 2022, the Associated Press published the report "20 days in Mariupol: The team that documented city's agony" by their correspondent Mstyslav Chernov, wherein he wrote about spending 20 days in the beseiged Mariupol and eventually evacuating together with with Yevhen Maloletka and Vasylisa Stepanenko.

They were covering the events in Mariupol, which was beseiged by Russian troops, filming the ruin caused by the shelling, the work of doctors in local hospitals, the numerous civilian victims.