Now in its fourth year, Russia’s war on Ukraine is being fought on the front in the Donbas, in international courts, and in the media.
And now dramatizations of the war are to hit the big screen, in both Ukraine and Russia.
Both countries are soon to release patriotic blockbusters “based on real events” depicting Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories, and each wants to show their vision of events that have shaped the recent history of Europe.
Russia has turned its 2014 invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula into a love drama called “Crimea,” set amid the Kremlin’s covert military operation to seize the Ukrainian territory. The film will be shown across Russia and Belarus starting from Sept. 28, UK newspaper the Guardian reported.
The plot involves a romance between a young woman from Kyiv and a man from the Crimean city of Sevastopol. Their relationship is rocked after the EuroMaidan Revolution leads to President Viktor Yanukovych abandoning office and fleeing Ukraine in February 2014. While the girl supports the pro-European movement in Ukraine, the guy joins the “pro-Russian resistance” in Crimea.
The film covers the Kremlin’s military intervention in Ukraine, when Russian troops in unmarked uniforms took over the Crimean parliament and installed a new, pro-Russian government.
Although Russia’s invasion of Crimea and sham referendum to justify the territory’s annexation have been internationally recognized as illegal, the Russian movie portrays the annexation as achieving “the independence of Crimea and its return to Russia.” The movie glorifies the illegal Russian intervention as having saved the peninsula from a bloody scenario – like the one the Kremlin was later to trigger in the Donbas.
The director of the movie Alexey Pimanov said that the movie was “anti-war” and was dedicated to those of the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers who did not shoot at each other.
Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed during Russia’s invasion of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. No Russian soldiers are known to have died.
Pimanov is also the head of Red Star media holding, which belongs to the Russian Defense Ministry. Since 2014 he has been declared persona non grata in Ukraine as one of the Russian journalists and artists that are supportive of the Kremlin.
On the other side of the barricade, Ukrainian film director and, coincidentally, ethnic Crimean Tatar Akhtem Seytablayev, is getting ready to premiere “Cyborgs” on Dec. 6.
Born in a small town near Tashkent, Seytablayev is known for his 2013 movie “Khaitarma” (Return) about the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Central Asia on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The movie was a huge success among Crimean Tatars, but received criticism from then-Consul General of Russia in Crimea Vladimir Nekrasov for being “one-sided and not providing any explanation” on why Stalin decided to deport some 200,000 Crimean Tatars from their land.
Seytablayev’s new movie, “Cyborgs” is a war blockbuster about the battle for Donetsk Airport between the Ukrainian army and Russia’s proxy forces in the Donbas.
The Fighting for Donetsk airport began in the last week of May 2014, and continued (with some periods of cease-fire) until January 2015. The defense of the airport lasted 242 days, and for their perseverance and courage the Ukrainian soldiers were dubbed by their enemies “cyborgs.”
The movie “Cyborgs” depicts a group of volunteer fighters during their two-week combat duty defending the Donetsk airport in September 2014. The lead character, known by the nom de guerre “Major,” is a musician from a wealthy family who secretly enrolls in a volunteer battalion. His, and six other characters, were based on real war veterans.
Seytablaev calls his work “the birth of a new epos, a story about modern heroes who build a new Ukraine.”
The first movie trailer published on YouTube on Aug. 15 is a sneak peek with a lot of shooting, explosions, and patriotic lines like “The airport is ours. Glory to Ukraine.”
