How a former RT employee is promoting the film “Russians at War” in the West

How a former RT employee is promoting the film "Russians at War" in the West

The scandal surrounding the documentary film “Russians at War” once again highlights that Ukrainians today must defend not only Ukraine from the Russian army but also the world from Russian propaganda.

Otherwise, it is difficult to explain how it happened that the Canadian Media Fund, funded by Canadian taxpayers, allocated $340,000 for the filming of the movie “Russians at War” by Russian Anastasia Trofimova, who has already made 11 documentary films for the Russian state company RT Documentary.

On September 6, at the Venice Film Festival, Trofimova’s 11th film “Russians at War” was screened, in which she examines the Russo-Ukrainian war through the lens of Russian propaganda and shows it from the perspective of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

On September 10, the film will also be shown in Canada — at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It seems that neither the festival organizers nor the media group responsible for the film’s production want to hear protests, statements, or warnings from Ukrainians, even though Canada, at the state level, provides significant support to Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

The film was viewed by Daria Bassel, a Ukrainian producer and programmer for the International Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA, who was the first to write about it, describing it as a striking example of pure Russian propaganda.

However, neither Daria’s post, the wave of discussions on social media, nor the appeals from the Ukrainian Congress in Canada and the Ukrainian Consul General in Toronto, Oleg Nikolenko, have had the desired effect so far. As of the morning of Monday, September 9, the North American premiere has not been canceled.

The media group TVO, which co-financed the film with taxpayer money (with the French government also involved), stated that the film is “anti-war in essence, unsanctioned by Russian officials, and was made with significant personal risk to the director,” and is “in the tradition of independent war reporting.”

The press release concludes with a call to watch the film on TVO and in future screenings, assuring that the media group provides “high-quality” and “ethical” content.

The organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival, in the release published on their website, omit the fact of Trofimova’s years-long collaboration with RT Documentary, a division of Russia Today — a state-funded Russian media company that serves as a major source of Russian propaganda worldwide.

Instead, the release, without any disclaimers or warnings, repeats the Russian narrative about “Ukrainian Nazism” and concludes with an “emotional” statement about the “sacrifice” of Russian soldiers and how they are forced to continue fighting to survive.

Here is how the film is announced:

“Trofimova, without permission, joins Ilya and his supply unit as they embark on a grueling journey to the front lines.”

On the IMDb online catalog, where the film is listed, the filming location was corrected on Saturday, September 7, after the scandal, changing it from Russia to Ukraine (as the events in the film took place in the occupied territories of Ukraine). The plot description was also simplified to: “A Russian-Canadian director gains unprecedented access to a Russian army battalion in Ukraine.”

The director herself refers to Ukrainians as “ukrAincy” (with emphasis on the “a”), explaining that she wanted to show that Russian soldiers are also human, not just war criminals as everyone in the West believes. Moreover, she has not observed any war crimes committed by them.

From this reaction, it seems that neither the Canadian producers, nor the organizers of the film festivals in Venice and Toronto, nor the IMDb administrators truly understand what the issue is. They seem to be unclear about what exactly is wrong and why Ukrainians are dissatisfied once again.

That is why we will try once again to explain in detail, point by point.

1. Trofimova’s Collaboration with Russia Today Documentary

Russia Today Documentary (RTD) is one of the many divisions of Russia Today, an international multilingual news network established and funded by the Russian government, and a key multilingual source of Russian propaganda worldwide.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the network has been sanctioned by the U.S. and Canada. RT’s broadcasting has been suspended in the EU. Apple removed the RT app from all countries except Russia. Microsoft also removed RT from its app store.

However, despite these bans and sanctions, RT content continues to be disseminated globally.

The RT Documentary division (in both English and Russian) was established in 2011, and was ceremonially launched by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to the RT studio in Moscow.

In March 2022, the RT Documentary channel was blocked on YouTube. In early September, U.S. intelligence agencies reported an investigation into attempts to interfere in U.S. elections by a network of American bloggers created with the involvement of RT (Texty.org.ua reported on the pivotal role of the RT network in spreading Russian disinformation in the U.S. as early as June).

Ongoing interaction with any divisions of RT and the Russian military (which Anastasia Trofimova has, judging by the themes of her filmography) should be a red flag for any Western institutions and a reason for a thorough background check for candidates seeking government funding, grants, or participation in film festivals, etc.

But for some reason, this is not how it works. The world carefreely marvels at the fact that “the Russian-Canadian director gained unprecedented access to a Russian army battalion in Ukraine.”

2. «Unprecedented access to the Russian Army»

Independent journalists are not allowed into military units in Russia. Even if they were, negative coverage of the war in Russia is subject to criminal penalties. It is unrealistic to expect a propagandist channel employee to risk imprisonment for the sake of truthful military reporting.

Thus, this is yet another trick intended to mislead naive Western media producers and officials.

But the story of the film’s creation, as presented by the organizers of the Canadian film festival, is striking in its simplicity. Trofimova (who, according to her social media, was in Moscow at the time of the invasion) supposedly happened to meet a Ukrainian named Ilya on a train, who decided to fight for Russia. Then, “without permission,” she traveled with him to the front line, where she spent seven months with his unit (judging by the context, somewhere near Bakhmut, in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region).

Just like that, can you imagine!

No FSB interrogations, no checks, no accreditation, and no obstacles from the Russian authorities. All it took was simply not asking for permission! Local residents of the Russian-occupied territories often speak of an atmosphere of constant fear and terror, where people frequently disappear and mobile phones are constantly checked for whether people are reading Ukrainian media or Telegram channels.

Local residents are thrown into torture chambers, for example, even for being “seen too often.”

And yet, a director with a Western education (the festival organizers emphasize her Canadian education), who spent seven months living in a combat unit and filming some unsanctioned movie, somehow faced no questions at numerous Russian checkpoints.

Therefore, we are confident that such a war film could not have been made without the knowledge of the Russian authorities. It is extremely naive to assume that this happened at the filmmaker’s own risk and without at least coordinating with the unit’s command, the local occupation administration, and the FSB.

Given the level of centralization of power and decision-making in Russia, it is unlikely that such permission was granted at the local level.

Trofimova is a close acquaintance of a Prigozhin ally

By the way, on Trofimova’s Facebook page, if you scroll a bit deeper, you can find an obituary she wrote after the death of the Russian war correspondent Kirill Romanovsky.

Russian media describe Romanovsky as a friend and associate of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the private military group “Wagner,” which fought in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa. He was a Russian propagandist and Prigozhin’s personal “chronicler,” accompanying the unit for eight years and writing a book about it.

In response to accusations from Ukrainian filmmakers of attempting to humanize the invaders, Trofimova said that “we need to humanize everyone. It is a huge tragedy for our region first and foremost.” She added that “these black-and-white stereotypes about each other will only contribute to the continuation of the war. This will lead to increasing hatred… Unfortunately, this is the path taken by politicians, but I don’t think this is the path ordinary people should follow.”

3. Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim. Not the other way around.

Despite Trofimova’s attempts to blur the focus and distance the state from some “politicians,” it is important to remember that the unprovoked aggressive war waged by Russia against Ukraine is not just a “path taken by politicians.” The Russian state is the aggressor, involving hundreds of thousands of its citizens in the attack and destroying the population of an independent neighboring country.

It seems that Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Film Festival, has also forgotten the difference in status between Ukraine and Russia in this war.

In a comment to the French agency AFP, he defended the Russian director’s film, expressing hope that “war films shown at the festival will not become ‘hostages of ideological prejudices and polemical statements, from which there is no benefit.’ Among the most relevant are two documentary films about the war in Ukraine, which are examined from radically opposite viewpoints.”

4. “Ukraine shelled Donbas for eight years” (not true)

The director recounts that a resident of occupied Donbas is fighting on Russia’s side because “Ukraine shelled Donbas for eight years” when the civil war began. However, she does not explain that, in reality, Ukraine did not shell Donbas (a deconstruction of this myth can be found here), and the war that started in 2014 was not a civil war but an undeclared invasion by the Russian army.

5. “Ukrainian Nazism,” which does not exist

This is another thesis presented by a character in the film that the supposedly independent director fails to deconstruct. “Nazism in Ukraine” is a construct of Russian propaganda used by the Russian government to justify its invasion.

In reality, Ukraine does not tolerate either Nazism or neo-Nazism. Unlike Russia, Ukraine is a democratic country.

Year after year, Ukraine has been one of the most tolerant countries towards Jews in Europe. There are no far-right forces in the Ukrainian parliament. It is a well-known fact that Volodymyr Zelensky, who won 73% of the votes in the presidential election, is Jewish. All far-right parties in the last parliamentary elections received only about 2% of the votes and did not enter the parliament.

Accusations of Nazism against Ukraine have no confirmation among researchers, journalists, and scholars.

But it seems that these arguments are not convincing to either the director of the Venice Film Festival or the director of the Toronto International Film Festival. By giving the Russian director the opportunity to convey key messages of Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine to audiences, they are confident that they have acted ethically.

Inna Hadzinska

Ukraine Front Lines