Ukraine crisis: Lithuanian documentary maker killed in Mariupol

Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed on Saturday in Mariupol, the Ukrainian city whose fate he had documented for many years, according to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry and a colleague.

“While (he was) trying to leave Mariupol, Russian occupiers killed Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius,” the ministry’s information agency tweeted.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

“We lost a creator well known in Lithuania and in the whole world who, until the very last moment, in spite of danger, worked in Russia-occupied Ukraine,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.

Kvedaravicius, 45, was best known for his conflict-zone documentary “Mariupolis”, which premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival.

The film paints a portrait of Mariupol, a strategic port in a largely Russian-speaking part of eastern Ukraine where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.

The city was a main target of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine on February 24. Now bombed into ruins, it has been besieged for weeks, with tens of thousands trapped with little access to food and water.

Amnesty International had awarded Kvedaravicius’s 2011 film “Barzakh”, shot in the Russian region of Chechnya, where Russian forces fought two wars to put down rebellions between 1994 and 2009, a prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

• Europe