Testimony of a fiancée: the last weeks of Mantas Kvedaravičius in Mariupol hell
Translation. Source: https://www.15min.lt/naujiena/aktualu/suzadetines-liudijimas-paskutines-manto-kvedaraviciaus-savaites-mariupolio-pragare-55-1664254
“The war did not kill him. It was the people who killed him. And I want to finish his work to show how people actually live in Mariupol. It’s all recorded,” Hanna Bilobrova, the fiancée of film director Mantas Kvedaravičius, who was killed by Russians in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, told 15min. She spoke openly for the first time about the last weeks of Mantas Kvedaravičius’ life: his decision to leave Uganda for Mariupol, filming in a city under constant shelling, his attempt to escape the siege, his capture, the dramatic search for his lover and the identification of his remains in the street.
Kvedaravičius’ death has been widely publicised around the world, but has also been the subject of various interpretations, some of them misinterpretations. Bilobrova, 29, agreed to testify openly in order to prevent further speculation.
March 3: Uganda
Mantas had told me, he had had enough of war and that we would not go to such places again. But since 24 February, when it all started in Ukraine, we were all tense and following the news. It was my birthday on March 3d and we all went for a rest. In the evening, when we came back, my relatives were just writing “Happy birthday, Anna”, and then it turned out that they were hiding in the basements…
I remember I got nervous and went to my room and Mantas went to the other room. I thought, I’ll calm down and we’ll go to bed. And then I get a text from Mantas in the other room — “Come here”. He is reading the news anxiously. At the same time, he keeps remembering his film about Mariupol, the footage and material that didn’t make it there. He always wanted to add to that film, to remake it… He thinks about the people in the Mariupol Drama Theatre, whom he knows and knows are alive and hiding there.
I walk up and he shows the latest news on his phone and says: “I want to go there and film the second part of Mariupol.” I looked at him and suggested we go for a smoke. I’ll come with you… It was the night of the 3rd to the 4th of March. We both understood the risks and that one of us might not come back.
March 13: Poland
We didn’t just go to shoot. Mantas said that Mariupol is being blockaded and we need to help its people. They are still living there without food, water and medicine. On the way back from Lithuania, we stopped overnight in Poland. Mantas bought food with his own money. About 10 boxes. To take to Mariupol, because there is nothing there. At the border with Ukraine, Mantas is reading the script of his next film, I even got angry — I said “why are you still working?” And he replied “what’s the big deal? I’ll be back, anyway, and there are a few more projects to come. It’s a lot of work, but we’ll get through it together and get it done.” In the meantime, we enter Ukraine and are greeted by a sign saying “Welcome to eternity”. It was scary, but we laughed “ok, eternity it is”…
March 18: Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia
Because of the shelling and danger along the way, we had to spend several days in Dnipro. Later we stayed overnight in Zaporizhia and in the morning we left there with a column of 80 cars towards Mariupol. At the beginning we had some information that they were letting people through the checkpoints. But as we approached Orekhova, the shelling started, the road was set on fire and we were not allowed through. Then we looked for detours to Mariupol. When we finally succeeded and entered the DNR territory, it started to get dark and we were stopped at a checkpoint. They told us to line up all the cars in the convoy.
Mantas then said for the first time in his life that they were making a human shield out of us. The soldiers forbade us not only to turn on the lights, but also to start the engine to warm up or get out of the car. So we spent the whole night in our cars in the cold. And in the morning they let everyone leave.
March 19 : Ukraine, Vyshneve, Manhush
Somehow we managed to get through the checkpoints. Mantas had a Lithuanian passport and mine was a Ukrainian passport from the Luhansk region, but on the Ukrainian side. But nobody really gave it a second look and accepted it as their own, like from the DLR. So I always showed mine first, and every time I tried to divert attention while they were checking Mantas’s. They could see that he was different, but they never fully understood what was different. Meanwhile, I kept harping on the fact that we were carrying food and water and were valantiors.
And it was only at one checkpoint, just outside Mariupol, that a young soldier, who seemed to be studying at a higher education institution, pointed out that Mantas’s passport was Lithuanian, the car was Polish, and I was a Ukrainian passenger. And the licence plates made him suspicious. He says he will inform the management and check more thoroughly now. We start to create some kind of legend as to why this is so, and I say, “You guys must not have any cigarettes”, and I hold out the whole pack. Then I say, “You haven’t checked the boot, you haven’t eaten yet, have you?” and I hand him some more tins. He smiles and says: “I don’t know how you are going to get to Mariupol, but go.” And he let me go, because he must have realised that, although we were very strange, we were not a danger.
We enter Mariupol, we see cars driving out of the city and lots of people on foot. Grandmothers who cannot walk are carried in garden wheelbarrows. The broken windows of the cars are covered with film, and some of them were even without film. Drivers have to wear glasses to avoid catching their eyes. But the most important thing is that the car is moving. We are on this hill, and I can see a wall of fire burning. I ask Mantas — what is it? And he tells me it’s Mariupol…
As we continue I realise that everything is changing. We are almost alone. There are only two cars left in the whole convoy, because the others have spun out on the way. And everything here is so ruined that it looks like the apocalypse has begun. There are wires hanging down, road signs and traffic lights lying around, unexploded shells…
The passenger of the car in front kept clearing the road. We drive along and there is not a soul in sight, just ruined houses, burnt-out cars, dead bodies… And you have to drive very fast. Very fast.
We are driving and we hear a tank firing somewhere up ahead. We drive on and I feel the sound of another shot coming from behind us, and a shock wave hits us. Only then did we realise that the tank was firing from an archway across the main street we were travelling along. The first shot was in front of us, and the second was behind us. We just missed him between those two shots.
We arrived at some kind of cinema with a shelter, and we started to load some of the food and aid we had brought. And then we noticed the people there. If it wasn’t for the war, but for the normal living conditions, you would probably say that they were drug addicts when you saw them. There is no life in their eyes. They are lifeless. Both Mantas and I noticed that.
At first we wanted to go to the drama theatre because it was important to Mantas, it was everything to him. He started filming his first film about Mariupol there. He wanted to continue there now. But in Dnipro we found out that the theatre had been bombed and completely destroyed. It was very painful…
Because of the shelling, we couldn’t get there. So we stayed in the house of prayer, which was also like a shelter — there was a basement where they took all the people. They even had a generator. There was some kind of life going on there and we decided to stay, to hide from the shelling. We couldn’t move and we started to think how we could film. Together we brought food, water, fuel, medical supplies.
The situation was such that we didn’t smoke a single cigarette in the first week. Because you go out, you have just a couple of smokes by the wall and you have to crawl back to the shelter on all fours. And the toilet was outside. You went to it, too, without much care for the shelling, because you were pressed up. We used to laugh that every time you go to the toilet you close the door and you think that if you’re going to die, it’s better not to die here… You open the toilet door and you wonder where it might be coming from now.
March 20 : Mariupol
We spent a day there, and then Mantas went out into the courtyard and asked the head of the house of prayer if he could shoot with a photo camera. He didn’t rush to do it right away. Little by little. And he was allowed to. The elder was just happy to show the world what was going on here. And Mantas started filming — their prayers, the building that was destroyed. Because the day before we arrived, a shell had hit the house of prayer itself. Until then, people were still able to live in the church to some extent, but then everyone had to move into the basement.
There was only a very short period of time for filming. The curfew ended at 6am. So we would get up at about 5 o’clock and then it would be until about 6.45, sometimes until 7 o’clock, until it was relatively quiet. There would be some firing, but those 45 minutes or so were the time when it was still possible to go outside. Of course, we were afraid, but at that time there was no falling on our heads. We could go out of the basement a little bit. Mantas started filming the residents.
When we arrived, there was a house in front of the Orthodox Church, with a man’s corpse lying on the roof. He had been blown away by the blast wave and was stuck in the roof. And there was no way to remove it. Nobody could remove the body or feed the dead man’s tied dog, because that would have required leaving the yard, which was very dangerous.
Meanwhile, another resident said he had a very similar situation, with half of his neighbour’s body, which was blown away by the blast, stuck in the roof of his house in a sheet of slate. He lived in the same house and was unable to climb up and remove the trapped body because of the shelling. He lived like that for three days. After that, however, he managed to climb up, push it away, load it into a cart and take the remains of the neighbour to his yard. But they could not bury him. So they left it.
I asked Mantas to film it. But he refused. His words to me were: “Ana, I didn’t come to film the war, not the corpses, not all that. I’m not interested in that. I am interested in how people live.” And he was so childishly happy: “There is no more life in the movie theatre where we had stopped. There are people left, but there is no life. But here, where we are now, people are living.”
We called some of the guys “rangers”. These are young people who are able to move around the city under fire, but somehow the bullets don’t hit them. In the meantime, they are somewhere getting diesel, dragging the corpses, then they bring a generator, they somehow manage to get water from a well or cigarettes from a shop that has been bombed. Mantas and I gave them the name of rangers.
Mantas was impressed by the people we lived with because they were always doing something. Like getting up at 5 a.m. and going to clean the door that had been kicked in. There is no need for that, because it could be blown open again at any time by a blast wave, but they are always doing something. Somebody is cooking, somebody is angry that somebody is smoking at the entrance, because it is a house of worship. What was most interesting to him was how people live. That’s why he didn’t go to film the war crimes, even though they were happening there. He was shooting the lives of ordinary people.
March 23 : Mariupol
A girl and her father came to us. They lived nearby. The girl was in the corridor while her mother was in the kitchen preparing food for the family. At that moment, a shell exploded and the mother was killed in front of the girl. The dad suffered a stroke. She is only ten years old and has no relatives. When Mantas saw her, he said: “We’ll bring you.” We decided that as soon as we could leave, we would take them together.
Then a drunken Russian soldier came. He saw our car parked outside the house. And he started to ask whose car it was. Everybody scattered, and I started to say that the car was ours, but it was broken, it didn’t run, there were no keys and so on. And because he’s drunk, he forgets the subject every time, and I try not to provoke him, but to steer the conversation nicely.
Then he comes up with the idea of going outside and starts blasting away with a machine gun. I am not scared that he is shooting, but I am scared that somebody will start shooting at him. And then I hear that he is already being led back by our people. And he is wounded. And I realise that there is a wounded Russian soldier in our church. We have to do something with him before they come and kill us all.
I tie a bandage over his leg to stop the bleeding and clean the blood that has already flowed. I am helped to bandage him. And then I say to that Russian soldier, “Be kind, get out of here. Go wherever you want, but just get out of here.” He asks me if he will be able come back. We say he will and he leaves us.
March 24 : Mariupol
In the morning, we go outside and see that the exit from the yard has been mined with five anti-tank mines. And we were just planning to leave in the near future. We were all in a low mood, because some of the people who were there were also planning to leave with us.
After a while, other soldiers in white armbands come over to us. They round up all the men and bring them to a lobby with windows. They order them to undress halfway. Then they start looking for tattoos and bruises. We were very lucky that it was a private soldier, not a commander, who checked the passports. He looked at the passport again and, not realising that it was a Lithuanian document, gave it back. As no bruises from the recoil of the weapon and no tattoos were found on anyone, that was the end of it.
The next question was — who owns the car? And who are you? We say we are valantiors. They want to know if we are from the Red Cross. We don’t say yes or no. One of the soldiers goes to check what’s in the car — whether we have brought any weapons or ammunition. Then he tells us to hand over the keys. They say, “We’ll come back in a couple of days and give them back.”
And then, in the afternoon, we were even glad that the gates to the yard had been mined. Because in that case, no tanks would enter our yard, which would be even more of a threat than the mines. And so we looked for the positives time after time.
In the evening, we started packing our backpacks and were already thinking about how to get out of there. Then I said to Mantas, thinking about the soldiers who had come in during the day, “Mantas, I am so scared that they might take you.” And then he said to me: “Anna, without you, no one will take me away from you. Only you can take me.” And although we had often said that to each other, that night, after all that had happened, we felt very differently. We understood each other.
We made preparations so that we could leave quickly in case of a demining. Then Mantas and the other men broke down the car door, took out the rest of the food and other things and hid everything. We thought that if there was any emergency, we would start the car with wires and try to get out.
March 25–27: Mariupol
The next day we were demined, and we started to worry that they might put a tank in our yard again. Tanks with the words “Ufa”, “Samara”, etc. started coming. This showed that the area was not controlled by Chechens, not by the DPR, but by the Russians.
We decided to leave in the early hours of the morning the next day. And as soon as we discussed it, the same Russian soldiers came and took our car. And I went out, and I tried to persuade them to leave the car, because there were children there, old people… And they told me “you will leave when the war is over”. Then they got in the car and drove off. Just before that they told one of the soldiers to write something on the side, Voluntiors or something.
Mantas and I started thinking again about what to do and how to proceed. We moved our backpacks and got ready to walk out. And strangely enough, Mantas then told us to pack enough food to last five days. And that’s how many days I was looking for him afterwards, wandering the streets of Mariupol. I didn’t eat the food while I was out looking, but that’s how many days it lasted.
But then the man who had accompanied us to Mariupol arrived unexpectedly. He is surprised that we are still here and offers to go with him. We still take the girl and her dad with us, the man whose neighbour was trapped in the roof. Before that, we left supplies for the people who were staying there, food for somebody, something for somebody, and we asked them to take the medicines to the hospital, so that it would not be all in the church.
The shelling started again, and we waited for it to stop so we could move. And just then, a shell hits the church and explodes. We hear that a fire has started. We rush upstairs to put everything out. In the meantime, the driver breaks down and says “screw it all, we’re leaving here and now”.
For the night, we stayed in a slightly quieter area of Mariupol. This is probably what doomed us. It’s a kind of neighbourhood where there are explosions somewhere, but you can stand in the yard, smoke, go out into the next street… Before that, where we stayed, it was a small and closed world. But here, you can even go out into the next street. And as soon as we arrived, we immediately felt relieved.
Mantas knew very well that you can’t relax in such places and you have to be careful until the end. And we relaxed — it’s fine, we’ll spend the night and leave tomorrow morning. We had already left Mariupol inside. This part, although close to the place of the battles, is relatively calm, because it is already occupied and so far nobody has been shot.
Then we stayed overnight at the driver’s mother’s house and woke up at 5–6am as usual. Mantas went to drink coffee in the next room and I overheard our driver talking to him. He said that he needed to get his family and children out and asked for help to go to people he knew and find a smaller car, because a minibus is a very good target. So we would gather the people in the smaller car and go on with the van.
Mantas comes to me and says: “I’ll go and keep the company.” I offered to go along, but he said no. I thought, if they get a car, wouldn’t want to take up space while they were collecting people.
And they left. I felt calm all day. But in the afternoon, they are still not there and still not coming back. I have already started to watch the adjacent streets — maybe they are coming back. But I see nothing. Soon it will be curfew time and they are still not there. And the driver’s mother is getting worried, and I am getting nervous. We sat down and discussed the situation. The driver is local. Both of them are not stupid. And if they see that curfew time is coming, they’ll probably stay somewhere with friends for the night. Then we somehow reassured each other that they just didn’t manage to get back in the time.
March 28: Mariupol
The next morning, I hear the backyard gate bang. I run out and see our driver standing at the entrance with people, but there is no Mantas. I look around again and he says, “Mantas has not come back”. I say, “What do you mean, he’s not back?” And the driver is all nervous: “We were walking, Mantas wanted to take a picture of a building…” He was very slurred, but I understood that Mantas wanted to take a picture of a building, and it turned out to be a military post. And they were both detained and their documents were checked. And Mantas had a Lithuanian passport. Then they stripped him halfway down to check his tattoos and bruises. And because we were walking with our backpacks, loading them, according to the driver, they found a bruise on his shoulder. Then they accused him of being a NATO soldier, a Lithuanian sniper who had come to kill them.
They are captured and kept in a building under fire. But in the morning, the driver is released. They leave Mantas behind for one of the superiors to come and investigate, because he is suspected of being a sniper.
I’m trying to figure out where to go and how I can find him. He says something vague. And I’m not local and I don’t even know where to look for him. I understand that the man is scared. And I cannot blame him. He started shouting that he would not wait for anyone and that he was leaving now. I just asked him to take the girl with him and take her away. Even though at first he said that he wouldn’t take anyone, he took her anyway.
I said I won’t leave my husband and off you go. I was left with no address, no landmarks, nothing. They just told me that there was such and such a building in such and such a neighbourhood.
And I start looking for him. I come to the area, I see a cluster of soldiers and I start asking questions. I say, my husband was captured yesterday. They started asking where he was being held and by whom — and I don’t know anything. They said, to come back in the afternoon.
And I don’t even know if I am looking in the right direction. And whoever I ask, they all say they don’t know. Either they didn’t take prisoners, or they were taken a long time ago and it can’t be Mantas. They suggest to go to another district. To look there. And again they tell me that we have all week-old Azov soldiers and no Lithuanians.
And I try to look for him by walking in the surrounding streets. I go out to the main street. As I later found out, this street was the main front line. I hear shots being fired, but I do not understand who is shooting and from which direction. Then I go into some kind of backyard, because it is safer there anyway, and for the first time I see Ukrainian soldiers. But I cannot ask them anything or ask for protection, because my husband has been captured by the other side. I cannot even talk to them, because then I simply cannot go any further.
I keep running because I can feel the bullets flying over my head. I accidentally run through the only open door somewhere, and there are soldiers standing there, and they didn’t have time to pull the trigger because they were holding something in their hands. I just ran across the contact line and I burst in to the DPR soldiers. And they redirected me. And so I was running from one place to another. You can’t cross the street peacefully there. There are tanks firing and bullets flying and major battles going on.
And nobody knows anything. There are no lists, nobody has seen anything. And so the evening comes. I have to go back for the night.
March 29: Mariupol
And so I kept turning the same circles every day in that area, trying to find signs of Manto. There were people telling me which headquarters or places to go to, but nobody knew anything. Then I started leaving notes saying that I was such and such, looking for my husband, Mantas Kvedaravičius, who was dressed like this and like that. I also had passport photos and I would leave them for those who talked to me a at least a bit.
Once, when I sat down, I saw a Niva passing. A soldier waved to me from it and said, “The boss is with me — talk to him. I go up to him, explain the situation and ask again. He listens, says he doesn’t know anything, but will try to find out. Every day I looked for him so I could ask him. But he would not give me any specific answer. But he did not ask for anything and he did not show any hint that if I did something his behaviour would change. He even said that I didn’t need anything, I could afford everything. I just want to help people.
I continued to look through other people and soldiers. During that time I started to get a sense of headquarters, who drives what car, where the commanders are, etc. And maybe they didn’t like that.
March 30: Mariupol
One day I’m walking along, and I see the same Niva coming around the corner, and I run over to ask if he’s found out anything. The commander looks at me without blinking and says: “Your husband is dead.” I ask: “What do you mean dead?” He then says, “A civilian in a blue jacket was seen dead and lying in the street. I don’t know whether he was released or not or why he was there walking.” I then asked to see the body and identify him. He then said that he would not help today because there was fighting going on and that I should come tomorrow. I was in shock, but somehow my mind still worked. I went back to the house of prayer and asked the men for help. I just thought what would happen if he was there and I had to take the body somehow. I couldn’t carry him alone.
March 31 : Mariupol
The next day, we couldn’t find the commander anywhere. We walked around, but all was empty.
April 1 : Mariupol
We have come back to that place and we are looking at different options. And in the meantime, the Niva arrives. I see that the commander is not there, but they say to me, “Get in, we are going to the commander.” I wave to the men as I leave, because I don’t understand where they are taking me. And as we drive, I can see through the front seats that Mantas is lying on the street in the front with a blue jacket on. I start banging the soldiers in front to stop, and they come around the corner and stop. I see the commander sitting there and he says with a cold look, “What? Yours?” I turn and run towards the body, the soldier tries to stop me, I break free and keep running. When I come running, I see that it is really Mantas, although he is lying face down and his head is covered by something. I wanted to hug him. But the soldier holds me by the elbow and says: “Girl, don’t touch him, he might be booby-trapped, and don’t come any closer.” They pull me away and take me to the commander. And he gives me instructions, “Help the civilian, load the body and which morgue are you taking it to?” I’m confused, and he goes on, “You decide, and they’ll take you where you need to go.”
At that moment I ran to ask the men from the church who had accompanied me for help, but they were nowhere to be found. And when I returned, I saw that the body was gone. It was already loaded with dead soldiers. But in my state of shock, something strange registered in my eyes.
I’m sitting next to the car with Mantas and I realise that when I used to talk about being afraid that he might disappear, he used to say to me: “Don’t worry, I’m giving you discs with copies of the footage and you have them with you all the time. And if anything happens, go to my friend in Lithuania and he will help you.”
And I realise that these days I have left the drives somewhere else in search of him, so that if I am searched by soldiers, they will not be there. And now, sitting here, I realise that Mantas is lying in a truck that is about to go to Donetsk, but I need to get the footage that he filmed and that he died for. I lied to the soldiers that I needed to take the missing documents and the precious things. They say, ‘Run, we don’t know how long it will take to get there. And I ran a few blocks to where I had been staying for the last few days. I picked up Mantas’s backpack, those drives with the copies, and went back.
When they asked me where we were going, I decided to go to Donetsk, because there was at least a connection there. From there, I could at least report on the death of Mantas.
April 2 : Donetsk
At night, we took a truck with the remains of the killed soldiers and Mantas to the Donetsk morgue. We had 14 dead soldiers and Mantas. In total, 56 dead were brought to the morgue that night.
Since I had nowhere to sleep, the corpsman offered me a couch in the morgue. It was a kind of tentative sleep…. And in the morning I started to take care of things and think about how to bring Mantas back to Lithuania.
Epilogue
I was scared not to find him. And I took the decision that I would not leave Mariupol until I found him. Alive or dead. Because we both knew that we would be together until the end. And that answer of his, that “Nobody will take me away from you without you”, was the essence. For me, the worst thing that could have happened has happened. It was important for me to find him, and I realised that it was not the war that killed him. It was the people who killed him. He did not deserve such a cruel death.
And now I want to finish his work, because that’s what he wanted. That’s why we went there, to show how people live. It’s all on the video. And I want to finish what he did. To let the whole world know that there are still people alive there. There are people living. That they help each other, they live and they haven’t gone anywhere.
Quick and rough translation done via deepl.com by https://twitter.com/TomasMarkauskas
