Breaking out of Mariupol | Mykhailo’s journey through war | DW | 2022

He is a hero to all those he pulled out of besieged Mariupol – he simply could not do otherwise, as he says himself. Mychailo Puryshev was in Kiev at the beginning of the war, but the club with which he had earned his living till then – his pride and joy – is in Mariupol. A place to party, dance, forget everyday life – with more than a dozen staff and their families. Mychailo wanted to at least save these people from the Russian shelling – and set off in a red minibus that he bought especially for this purpose. Across the front lines, past checkpoints, he repeatedly came under fire – and still kept going. He has driven from Kiev to Mariupol and back a total of six times in recent weeks, each time bringing food and medicine into the besieged city and taking people out and bringing them to Kiev. He has seen the unimaginable. Until now, he had not known how you could love a country. Now, he says, he knows – and wants to continue fighting for a free Ukraine. He has already planned the next trip. A film by Mathias Bölinger.