When the 81st Venice International Film Festival presented the documentary Russians at War as its world premiere, the film was greeted with a five-minute standing ovation. However, critical Ukrainian voices immediately arose, forcing festival director Alberto Barbera to defend the film against massive accusations of being pro-Russian, declaring it an anti-war film without any propagandistic leanings. For him, the work is characterised by its humane perspective and its artistic qualities. The film was presented in two closed events.
But this was only the beginning of a comprehensive offensive. Just a few days later, the Ukrainian-Canadian community demanded that the Toronto International Film Festival remove the film from its program, without most of those demanding it even having seen it. This festival also defended the work, arguing not only that it did not serve any propaganda but also that festivals respected the right of artists and cultural workers to freedom of expression, opinion, and speech. Any censorship measure was therefore to be rejected. Festivals must provide a safe space for the exchange of different viewpoints. However, TIFF subsequently received disturbing requests for information regarding the building’s construction and security measures, especially regarding the entrances and exits for VIPs. Festival staff were also bombarded with hundreds of threats by phone and email, and even threats of violence. Plans to disrupt the screening also became known. The festival subsequently cancelled the public screenings. Two screenings took place a few days later at a cultural centre on the outskirts of the city, under the protection of massive police and security forces.
Other festivals, such as the Zurich Film Festival, resisted the pressure, which now also emanated from the Ukrainian government. Other festivals kept the film in competition but cancelled public screenings for security reasons.
Still other festivals, such as the Mumbai Film Festival and the Leuven Docville Film Festival, cancelled the film, the latter due to pressure from the Ukrainian embassy.
What happened? On New Year’s Day 2022, Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova met Ilya, a soldier dressed as Santa Claus, returning from the front in the Moscow metro and about to leave again. She persuaded him to help her travel to his battalion to gain her own impression of the reality there and to turn her observations into a documentary film. Without official permission, even without a press pass, she entered the theatre of war. She was tolerated under low-profile conditions. Most soldiers welcome the fact that the truth about their lives there is finally being shown and that something is being done to counter the lies of the TV stations.
Russian propaganda—that heroes always win and the others die—is met with cynicism among Russian soldiers. Upon Trofimova’s arrival, only 300 of the 900 soldiers in Ilya´s battalion had survived, among them many wounded and permanently disabled.
Soldier’s motives
Trofimova carefully questions and observes the soldiers, including their conversations with each other, to understand their motives for fighting this war. She hears a wide variety of arguments. Some cite traumatic memories of 2014 in eastern Ukraine, where they lost their homes, possessions, and, in Ilya’s case, their businesses. Speaking Russian there meant being a second-class Ukrainian. Russians are also familiar with the problem of living without gas, electricity, and water. Other soldiers embraced a vague sense of patriotism, fueled by propaganda that suggested they had to defend their country against Western occupation. But this patriotism soon fades in the face of a reality in which only senseless sacrifices are recorded on both sides. One soldier says: there must be genuine reasons for fighting. Many, however, doubt this. Another soldier says: we carried out an invasion, but against our will. Another declares: the war is being artificially prolonged because some benefit from it.
Still other soldiers signed up for temporary contracts for monetary reasons, also to ensure the survival of their families. They themselves become prisoners, as they cannot return after their contracts expire. Unpaid for months, they are often penniless. Still others are not even on the payroll and will not be compensated. Even after being wounded, they receive no material assistance. Some report having lost a friend or their own family going to war. Some soldiers wanted to accompany a friend who was forcibly drafted or swept along by propaganda, or even their own father or son. Still others stay and fight in revenge for their fallen friends and comrades. Others say, if I don’t fight now, my sons will have to in the foreseeable future. One drug addict admits that he would rather be here than in his place of origin.
Anastasia Trofimova not only witnesses these stories but also asks questions whenever she deems it necessary, for example, when a soldier speaks of the «Ukrainian Nazis» who hate the Russians. How, she asks, does he come to this view? More than that, she asks just as directly whether the soldiers have witnessed war crimes, torture and murder, including of civilians. The accusation made against Trofimova of not naming war crimes is reduced to absurdity in such scenes. When the soldiers interviewed deny these acts, this is the testimony of a front-line balloonist in which no prisoners are taken, but only the bodies of their own soldiers are recovered under certain circumstances.
The torture atrocities committed against Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in camps and hospitals, or as troops penetrate villages, are not carried out where all soldiers are mere cannon fodder in a hopeless trench war. Therefore, the answers of those interviewed by Trofimova are not automatically untrue.
The accusation made against Trofimova of not naming war crimes is reduced to absurdity in such scenes.
Casualties (and truths) of war
The soldiers know the losses will be heavy—vodka and a cheerful mood mask their fears. New recruits arrive without any training. Due to their lack of experience, some don’t even survive the first few days. They are assigned to operate USSR-era tanks without having received any instructional support for their use. Ilya’s battalion, 180 km from the direct war zone when Trofimova arrives, is now being ordered back to the front. They spend the night on the way there in a Russian nuclear bunker. Trofimova also brings frightened Russian civilians near the front into the picture. Their situation is equally paradoxical. They complain of being shelled by their allies. They became institutional Russians without any active involvement, largely due to the picture of Lenin and the constant propaganda in their school. Now, the contested Donbass is nothing but a lifeless zone.
The first casualties are also being recorded in Ilya’s medical unit. Voices are heard again, saying: we don’t even know what we’re fighting for. There’s no plan, not even information about mines. They know that in this first visual confrontation with the enemy, entering this combat zone, they will be killed en masse. We are being sent, it is clearly stated again, to be slaughtered. In this sequence, Trofimova also uses drone footage showing tank explosions and bomb victims, as well as dozens of dead and wounded. One encircled man commits suicide. An officer cries, having to inform the descendants of those killed.
In the final part of her film, Trofimova brings to the fore a fatal truth. She shows a soldier who was extremely critical of the war, but now, after being seriously injured, speaks of a just war, without which Russia would be lost, as its borders would be under siege. Trofimova again asks how he came to this assessment. He answers that he cannot forget the face of a killed comrade. He shows her a video released by the Ukrainian side in which an injured soldier, already lying on the ground, makes violent, desperate hand gestures demanding that the bombing be stopped. But this happens repeatedly, however, until he no longer moves. The terror of war, fueled and documented by propaganda, only perpetuates increasing hatred and serves as the greatest warmonger.
At the end, Trofimova gives the women their floor. At her husband’s grave, one of them laments: «Why do you need this fame?» She adds, «He didn’t even know what he was fighting for. We women, mothers, and children don’t need this war.» Another woman doesn’t want to tell her child anything about the war, as almost everything about it is a lie. Another turns directly to the camera: «I give my permission for this documentary so that people can understand what is really happening.»
Manipulations and propaganda
In light of the attacks against Russians at War, this more detailed description of the film’s content seems necessary. The film is clearly difficult to see in public spaces. Trofimova has created a documentary that not only shows the deliberate manipulation of patriotism and friendships, but also the exploitation and deception using monetary means to stage a war that benefits capital interests. She shows soldiers who know their government is deceiving them and are serving only as cannon fodder. She shows one of the humane aspects of this war, which is claiming victims on both sides. Labelling the simple fact that Russian soldiers, even in large numbers, do not want to wage war as pro-Russian propaganda fits well into the ongoing propaganda machine. The accusation directed against the film should be directed at the propagandising accuser himself. Not only Ukrainians suffer violence, but also Russian soldiers, as well as the threatened festival workers and participants. It would be far more beneficial to Ukrainian interests to know and declare who the real enemy is.
Trofimova offers a work that seeks humane truths. She absolves no one of responsibility; she shows soldiers who follow Russian propaganda, but explores how they are remotely controlled and misled. She took a truly considerable personal risk to make this anti-war film in the hope of making a small contribution to a swift end to this war. She is accused of lacking empathy. Humanity seems to be the enemy of the propaganda machine itself.
It is neither the question nor the intention here to, in any way, downplay the horrific massacres and torture we are constantly being informed about. People become barbarians in war under the encouragement of the propaganda machine. This insight could also be applied to the torture of Russian soldiers by the Ukrainian army.
Trofimova was also accused of entering Ukraine without permission. Should she have brought her battalion to the passport office, or the authorities to the battalion? Rhetorical nonsense. Reporters Without Borders is also a foreign concept to the prosecutors here.
At no point has Trofimova minimised or denied war crimes. On the contrary, she addresses them. Nor does she advocate simply absolving responsibility by following orders. Also, Ukrainians unwilling to fight are forced to follow orders.
Trofimova is concerned neither with strategies of exculpation nor accusation. She is concerned with uncovering how the power mechanisms that lead to atrocities work. Rhetorical, propagandistic demonisation is of little help here.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications declared Trofimova a threat to national security and an enemy of the state. The Ukrainian Security Service even filed charges against her for denying Russian aggression and glorifying its protagonists.
The consequences of this intimidation affect all documentary directors and their producers, who will tend to avoid politically important but controversial topics after such attacks, thus causing great damage to a culture of debate at a time when cultural institutions, distributors, and the media are already increasingly risk-averse and avoiding politically controversial, current topics in favour of portraits and music documentaries.
Among the accusers…
Anastasia Trofimova made, to name just a few, a documentary about the Kurdish Women’s Protection Unit (YPJ) fighting against ISIS (Her War: Women Vs. ISIS, 2015) and the first shelter for orphaned children in Iraq (Iraqi Safe House, 2018). She attempted to contribute to coexistence and peacekeeping measures for people in Mosul, Iraq, who had taken a position for or against ISIS (Mosul Between War and Peace, 2018). She also documented the activities of the only NGO in Russia dedicated to rescuing people from forms of modern slavery (Enslaved, 2020).
We would like to see similarly courageous and humanitarian activities among their accusers.
