What to watch
MARIUPOL: THE PEOPLE’S STORY
BBC One, 9pm
While news bulletins have taken care to show the human as well as geopolitical impact of Vladimir Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, the cumulative effect of an hour’s worth of personal testimony is considerable in this Panorama special. The words are those of the residents of Mariupol, a once-thriving and fast-modernising city in east Ukraine whose population of 430,000 has dropped to fewer than 80,000 following Russia’s besiegement. From an anaesthetist to a teacher, engineer and local television presenter, the accounts are both immensely personal and unified, describing the cycle of shock, defiance, then fear as the bombs started to fall. Comfortable lives are upended and families are torn apart as some join the resistance while others seek safety in the west or elsewhere in Europe. “People were scared of both leaving and staying,” says one. “It was a choice of two ways of being killed.” Dealing with dead bodies becomes at once commonplace and impossible to fully process. But perhaps most heartrending are the children whose innocent doodling now features tanks and guns, while their parents try to cling to a fading optimism. Grim but necessary viewing. Gabriel Tate