Ukraine protests over screening of film about Russian soldiers at festival in Venice

Yaroslav Melnyk, Ukraine's ambassador to Italy, has protested the showing of Russian director Anastasia Trofimova's film The Russians at War at the Venice Film Festival and urged the festival's organisers to prohibit Russian propaganda. Source: Ukrainian Embassy in Italy on Facebook, as reported by European Pravda Details: The Ukrainian ambassador states that Kyiv was "taken aback by the decision of the jury of the film festival" in Venice to screen the film The Russians at War, which he believes is "inappropriate and offensive to the Ukrainian people."

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

Melnyk stated that the film "is a shameful example of Orwellian manipulation of the truth," noting that it ignores active hostilities in Ukraine since 2014, and that its display is especially inappropriate given the tragedies in Poltava, Lviv, and Odesa, where dozens of people were killed by Russian strikes. "The main character of the film [crew], director Trofimova, who has a history of personal cooperation with the most infamous Russian propaganda channel Russia Today, should really cause great concern among the European cultural community," he told CNN.

The envoy urged Venice Film Festival organisers to "condemn the use of art for propaganda and prevent the participation of films that openly promote Russia's war against Ukraine and whitewash the crimes of the Kremlin regime." The Russians at War was already exhibited on 5 September at the Venice International Film Festival.

The director stated that she spent seven months with a Russian battalion fighting in Ukraine and was surprised to learn that they were "absolutely ordinary guys with families, with a sense of humour." Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis was outraged that the Venice Film Festival screened this movie. The Ukrainian Consulate General in Toronto also expressed concern about the plan of screening The Russians at War during the international film festival in this Canadian city.

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