Amna Nawaz
@PBSNewsHour·5.3M subscribers·62.2K videos
Survivors recall 'horror' of strike on Mariupol theater
Posted
July 18, 2026
Views
2,170
Likes
77
Engagement
3.55%
July 18, 2026
2,170
77
3.55%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
2:55Now PlayingThe Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theater was the cultural center of Mariupol, the second-largest city in Ukraine’s southeast. In the early days of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian soldiers besieged Mariupol, home to a large sea port, arts festivals and iron and steel plants.
Residents hoped the war would prove short, but in 2022, a Russian airstrike on the theater that killed civilians came to symbolize Ukrainian sacrifice and revealed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s true intentions.
Author James Verini joined Compass Points host Nick Schifrin to discuss the haunting portrait of death and survival in his new book, “The Theater: Courage and Survival in the Defining Atrocity of the Ukraine War.”
Compass Points from PBS News analyzes prominent international affairs topics and America’s role in a shifting world, breaking down global conflicts, rising tensions, and their implications for U.S. interests. Visit the PBS News website to watch this week's episode.
Sign up for Here's The Deal with Lisa Desjardins
Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters
PBS News podcasts
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app
Find more from PBS News at
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
