Ukraine protests screening of film about Russian soldiers at Venice festival

Yaroslav Melnyk, Ukraine's ambassador to Italy, has condemned the screening of Russian director Anastasia Trofimova's film Russians at War at the Venice Film Festival and urged the festival's organisers not to show Russian propaganda.

Source: Ukrainian Embassy in Italy on Facebook, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The Ukrainian ambassador said Kyiv had been "taken aback by the film festival jury’s decision" to screen Russians at War, which he believes is "inappropriate and offensive to the Ukrainian people".

Quote: "Russians at War is a film of sympathy for the aggressor, with a parallel devaluing of the aggressor's victims, despite the thousands of Ukrainian lives lost and the millions maimed by the Russians."

Melnyk stated that the film "is a shameful example of Orwellian manipulation of the truth", noting that it ignores the hostilities that have been ongoing in Ukraine since 2014, and that its screening is especially inappropriate given the tragedies in Poltava, Lviv and Odesa, where dozens of people have been killed by Russian strikes.

"The main character of the film [crew], the director Trofimova, who has a history of personal cooperation with the infamous Russian propaganda channel Russia Today, should really be causing great concern among the European cultural community," he told CNN.

The envoy urged the Venice Film Festival organisers to "condemn the use of art for propaganda and not to show films that openly promote Russia's war against Ukraine and whitewash the crimes of the Kremlin regime".

Russians at War was screened on 5 September at the Venice International Film Festival. The director said she had spent seven months with a Russian battalion fighting in Ukraine and had been surprised to learn that they were "absolutely ordinary guys with families, with a sense of humour".

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has expressed outrage that the Venice Film Festival screened the movie.

The Ukrainian Consulate General in Toronto has also expressed concern over plans to show Russians at War during the international film festival in the Canadian city.

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