Ukrainian singer Fomenko tours US with documentary on Mariupol, plight of POWs

CHICAGO – The heart and soul of Ukraine’s resilient spirit was on full display on April 12 in the third most populous U.S. city. 

Singer, filmmaker and poet Serhiy Fomenko is touring the U.S. to screen “People of Steel,” a heart-wrenching documentary film that highlights the fighting spirit of Ukrainian soldiers. 

The gripping 67-minute film showed previously unseen footage of how the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast was defended during Russia’s siege in 2022. 

Russia’s assault on the Azov Sea port city stands out as one of the devastating episodes of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Ukrainian officials estimate that 22,000 civilians were killed by indiscriminate Russian shelling, while Human Rights Watch says that 8,000 people were unnecessarily killed. 

Screened at Chicago’s arthouse Chopin Theater, the film-viewing event also featured a question-and-answer session with Fomenko, the movie’s director, and acoustic musical performances by the Kirovohrad region native. 

Fomenko, who is the frontman of the Mandry musical group, calls his production “a special-purpose movie” and told the audience he wanted “show people what’s happening in Ukraine” amid Russia’s ongoing war and remind them that some 800 defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in the city are still in Russian captivity. 

“I saw war crimes,” Fomenko said of his own service as a territorial defense soldier for four months while defending the outer suburbs of Kyiv when Russia’s all-out war broke out in February 2022. 

It took him six months to get footage for the movie, especially from the Reuters news agency who entered Mariupol during Russia’s assault on the city, the Donetsk region’s second largest, in 2022. 

About 53 Azov defenders were also killed in one day as prisoners of war at the Donetsk regional Russian-operated Olenivka prison, he said. 

Fomenko said that a thermobaric bomb had fallen on the prison and that no Russian prison guards had been present at the site, suggesting Moscow had deliberately bombed it. 

His 10-month tour encompasses eight cities and his next stop will be in Naples, Florida and then San Francisco in California. 

“Russia has already lost the war and I ask U.S. citizens to contact their elected officials for more assistance,” Fomenko said. “Ukraine has exposed the hollowness of Russia’s ‘greatness,’ Russia is just an oil and gas country.”

He added that the film’s purpose is to show that “Ukrainians have the right to freedom, to have its own identity…but we need more weapons.”

Fomenko continued: “it’s a film about who we are as Ukrainians and that it wants to be a nation that fights for fundamental human rights.”

In essence, “People of Steel” serves as a poignant tribute to the courage and resilience of Ukrainian defenders, while also functioning as a powerful advocacy tool to mobilize global support for the release of prisoners held by Russian forces.