'Crossfire', an investigative documentary on the death of two journalists, Andrea Rocchelli and Andrej Mironov, who was killed in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine on 24 May 2014, is the brainchild of a group of Italian and Ukrainian journalists, namely Cristiano Tinazzi, Olga Tokariuk and Danilo Elia. It intends to shed light on the true circumstances that led to the death of the two journalists and to the incarceration of Vitaly Markiv, a Ukrainian soldier with Italian citizenship accused of being responsible for the killing.

The documentary tries to provide answers to several doubts which have arisen during Markiv's trial. The trial took place in July 2019, in Pavia, and resulted in a 24 years' prison sentence in the first instance against Markiv for Rocchelli's death. Numerous Ukrainian NGOs and some Italian press outlets, as well as human rights organizations like the Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU), have raised doubts over the sentence, claiming it was solely based on circumstantial evidence.

Moreover, ignorance and the influence of Russian propaganda over the Italian media might have played a key role in finding a scapegoat at all costs, despite Markiv having always claimed his innocence.

November 3, 2020: the Court of Appeal in Milan has acquitted the Ukrainian national guard soldier Vitaly Markiv and ordered his release from custody.

December 9, 2021 the court of 'cassazione' (third grade) rejects the requests of the attorney general and confirms the sentence of acquittal in the appeal trial

This is their story and the story of the conflict in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014