The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture announced on Monday that it had placed the director of the documentary on the list of “persons posing a threat to national security.” Russians at Warwhich deals with the invasion of Ukraine from the point of view of Russian soldiers and is heavily criticized by kyiv.
This film by Russian-Canadian Anastasia Trofimova has been at the centre of controversy since its presentation at the Venice Film Festival in early September, with Ukrainian authorities considering it to be “Russian propaganda”.
The director, who spent several months in a Russian battalion fighting in Ukraine, shows the daily lives of soldiers. She told AFP that her film was “an anti-war documentary” and showed “ordinary people”.
Ukraine’s Culture Ministry said Monday that Anastasia Trofimova was now “on the list of persons posing a threat to the national security of Ukraine,” in part because of her documentary.
“This propaganda film does not address or acknowledge the atrocities committed by Russia during its invasion,” released in February 2022, the ministry accused in a statement.
“Wider information warfare”
The documentary “promotes the idea […] “according to which Russians are just as much victims as Ukrainians, which is unacceptable,” it continues.
She is the 233e person to be placed on this list, according to this press release.
Minister Mykola Tochytsky, quoted in the statement, said that cases like that of Anastasia Trofimova are part of a “broader information war launched by Russia, which is trying to justify its aggression through culture and the media.”
The North American premiere of Russians at Warat the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), was canceled last week due to “threats,” according to organizers.
According to an AFP journalist who saw the film, the fighters seen on screen seem to have lost the meaning of their participation in this conflict, far from the official discourse that the Russian authorities are trying to propagate.
Lacking equipment, they tinker with their own weapons and resort to Soviet-era equipment. Between a cigarette or a glass of alcohol, these soldiers try to drown their dismay in the face of the injuries or deaths of their comrades.
One of the documentary’s producers, Philippe Levasseur, told AFP that it was “the story of a machine that crushes men.”