Alexander Rodnyansky is a Kyiv-born film producer whose movies have been nominated for Academy Awards.
The debate over the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to screen and then pause Anastasia Trofimova’s documentary Russians At War has been fraught and emotional. I condemn, for instance, that threats – including of sexual violence – have been received by festival staff, according to TIFF’s CEO. Nothing can justify such abuse, and I’m sure all Ukrainians will agree with me on that. It should also be said that the film is well-made, deserving of professional praise and the good reviews it has received.
But it is important to understand why Ukrainians and anti-war Russians alike reacted so strongly – why Ms. Trofimova’s creative choices look so suspicious to us, and why some see so many familiar Russian propaganda narratives in her work.
Protests against TIFF’s screening were driven by emotion, and this helped simplistically frame the issue. When someone claims that the problem with Ms. Trofimova’s film is that it dares to “portray Russians as humans,” the protest loses legitimacy. As the National Post put it: “Should we pretend they’re lizards? Aliens?” Of course not.
And of course, Ukrainians’ raw pain cannot justify the dehumanization of the enemy. But this pain is real, and often forgotten. The world was shocked, for instance, by the 2022 massacre in Bucha – but then the world moved on, a luxury that Ukrainians living under constant assault cannot afford. Even those who live abroad have friends or relatives for whom the sound of air-raid sirens has become routine. Less than two weeks ago, Ukrainians saw a grieving father bury his wife and three daughters, who had perished in a Russian missile attack on Lviv. Constantly witnessing the sheer scale of the tragedy understandably makes Ukrainians more emotional when they are presented with the point of view of Russian soldiers.
There are obvious issues with the director’s claims of impartiality. Ms. Trofimova made films for RT Documentary, a sister channel of state-funded RT, one of the biggest Russian propaganda organizations. She also claims that she spent time on the frontlines without direct authorization from the Russian military, which sounds implausible.
The film is seemingly objective, as it characterizes war as unjust. International press who expected to see a straightforward pro-Russian message didn’t see anything of the sort; many of them then concluded that the film wasn’t an instrument of propaganda, but an artful documentary.
This conclusion is wrong. Russian propaganda is cunning and sophisticated, and you need context to know what you are looking for.
RT was founded to provide the Kremlin’s point of view to the world and improve Russia’s image, often using foreign voices. It didn’t export lies, necessarily, but a different version of the truth.
This is the fundamental idea on which the Russian propaganda machine operates: it doesn’t have to provide you with a clear message. Seeding doubt is enough.
Russia’s disinformation machine seeks to nurture discord and sows confusion by presenting alternative points of view on many issues, from abortion, vaccinations and immigration to the legality of Russia’s invasion. Similarly, Russians At War provides an alternative point of view to Western audiences but never questions it, never shows a bigger picture, never contradicts the obvious lies repeated by ordinary Russians in the trenches. Ms. Trofimova just allows the soldiers to speak their minds. When a soldier says that Russia is fighting “Nazis in Ukraine,” for instance, there is no context or debunking. Yes, soldiers may feel that the war is unjust, useless, even criminal – but they still continue to fight. They continue to kill Ukrainians and they do it for money. These are the people that have been provided access to the international audience – and these are the alternative stories that could confuse them.
Russians are familiar with the Kremlin’s propaganda cliché: “Everything is not so clear-cut.” That uncertainty has been the cornerstone of Russian propaganda from the first day of war: was Russia wrong to invade a sovereign country, making millions of people refugees and killing thousands over more than two years? The propagandists win if we accept their message: This is a complicated issue with no simple answer; there is more than one version of the truth; we will never know everything. This is the message of Russians At War, repeated over and over again by Russian soldiers.
Humanizing Russians is not what people have taken issue with, and blind hatred of all things Russian is not what they endorse. The issue is with providing active-duty soldiers with a platform to freely repeat the propaganda that poisoned them in the first place while war and death continue.
That’s what Russians At War does – it advances the Kremlin’s war aims. Even if it’s inadvertent, that’s something worth being emotional about.