Jevhen Maloletka was in Perpignan, France to receive the award, which he dedicated to the people of Ukraine.
The 35-year-old, who works for the news agency AP, was, together with colleague and video reporter Mstyslav Chernov, among the first journalists on the scene in Mariupol.
The two arrived in the city at half past three in the morning on February 24th. An hour later, Russia launched the war of aggression against Ukraine.
Maloletka and Chernov were also among the last to leave Mariupol, on March 15, when it was largely bombed.
The 20 days in Mariupol Maloletka describes as one long endless day, “which got worse and worse”.
Maloletka’s pictures show some of the horrors of war – dead children, heavily pregnant women among the ruins of bombed buildings and hastily arranged mass graves. Maloletka’s and Chernov’s reports from the attack on a maternity hospital helped to open the eyes of the outside world to what was going on inside the closed city.