‘An open discussion is good’, a man calls out to the group of demonstrators standing at the entrance to The Hague campus and carrying Ukrainian flags and protest signs. ‘Propaganda doesn’t spark debate, it manipulates it’, ‘Those “poor Russian boys” killed my friends’ and ‘Real Russians at war kill, rape and torture’, read the signs.
The group is protesting the screening of the controversial documentary Russians at War on The Hague campus on Wednesday night – partly at the initiative of Leiden University College (LUC). The film had previously been removed from the programme of the Amsterdam documentary festival IDFA and caused uproar at the Toronto Film Festival. In Leiden and The Hague, there was also strong criticism from students, staff and the Ukrainian embassy last week. Nevertheless, the university decided to go ahead with the screening.
The documentary depicts the war in Ukraine from the perspective of Russian soldiers. Critics say the film paints an overly positive picture of the Russian army and glosses over war crimes committed by Russians.
As the demonstrators sing the Ukrainian national anthem, police vans and officers on bicycles fill the street. ‘Ukraine started the war’, shouts another man before entering the university building.
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
When it is almost time to show the film on the big screen in the auditorium, police officers clear the street. The demonstrators leave while chanting slogans like ‘Shame on you’ and ‘Stop Russian propaganda!’
‘As an academic institution, we are dedicated to upholding freedom of thought’, Dean Koen Caminada begins. ‘But we’re also aware of the pain and sensitivity surrounding this topic. Leiden University has received several requests to cancel tonight’s screening. However, we are convinced that universities should continue to provide space for critical engagement with difficult issues.
‘To be clear: providing a platform for the film is not equivalent to endorsing its content. We acknowledge concerns about propaganda and misinformation, which is exactly why tonight’s screening takes place in a rigorous academic setting.’
The film starts and a half-filled auditorium is introduced to 49-year-old Ukrainian Ilya who fights for the Russian army. Even director Anastasia Trofimova does not know why. We watch Ilya say goodbye to his wife, son and daughter and promise his crying children to come back home alive. And then he leaves Moscow for the front in occupied Ukraine.
‘Russia invaded Ukraine’, the filmmaker’s voice narrates. ‘In Russian media, these soldiers are heroes. In the West, they are war criminals. The fog of war is so thick that you can’t see the human stories it’s made of.’ She then explains that she is heading to the front – without permission from the defence ministry – to ‘find out what is happening in my country’.
Best friends Cap (24) and Cartoon (20) travelled to the front together. Cap enlisted voluntarily and Cartoon followed him. ‘To fight Nazism’, he says. ‘They hate Russians and that’s why Ukraine started the war.’
When asked by Trofimova if he has heard that Russia has been accused of war crimes, he responds: ‘I think that’s not true. I’ve seen many people here and some of them are capable of a lot. But going up to civilians who have done nothing to you and killing and raping them? Russian soldiers are not capable of that.’ He does think Russia ‘sort of’ invaded Ukraine. ‘But we didn’t do that of our own volition, it was an order.’ Whether that order was justified, he does not know.
GLUING FINGERS
‘It’s either them or me’, says soldier Cap, who makes grenades. ‘And the fact that they’ve been bombing their own people for eight years doesn’t count?’ This statement is met with protests from the audience. Cap continues: ‘They’re a bit wrong and we’re a bit wrong. I’m doing this for me, so I can survive.’ He then accidentally glues his fingers together.
As the soldiers discuss why they joined the army, they give remarkably few nationalistic reasons. Money, women and a sense of duty are important factors for many. ‘I don’t want my son to be called to the front in four years’, says one of them. ‘When I saw this on TV, I enlisted’, says another. ‘But if I had known it would be like this and that I’d be here for seven months, I never would have done so.’
There is open criticism: ‘While politicians argue about who has the biggest balls, people die here.’ Multiple soldiers say they do not even know what they are fighting for any more.
After footage of fallen Russian soldiers, reconnaissance drones and medical personnel waiting out the bombings in a shelter, the screens go back up. Trofimova and other panel members discuss the film, both among themselves and with the audience.
A Ukrainian student counted and categorised as many as 15 instances of emotional manipulation during the film: ‘Was the goal to make the viewer sympathise with these men?’
Another student questions Trofimova’s credibility. ‘In Russia, citizens are arrested for liking the wrong things on social media that would discredit the Russian army. And here, we have a director who spent seven months at the front making a film and didn’t show the prettiest parts of the Russian army, yet there have been no criminal proceedings against her. To what extent does the panel find this story about not having government permission to make this film credible?’ Loud applause is heard from some of the audience.
CONTEXT
Bart Schuurman, professor of terrorism and political violence, was added as a panel member at the last minute and is not pleased with the event. ‘I’m disappointed in a colleague who organised this without providing the proper setting for it. I’m not at all opposed to screening controversial films, but that does require context and there should be space for interpretation of what we saw. Initially, the plan was to screen the film and have a Q&A with the director afterwards. That was it. There would have been no room for an opposing perspective, until a panel was put together at the very last moment: yesterday.’
He is also critical of the film itself. ‘We see how Russian soldiers have rather subtle illusions about the Ukrainians, NATO or the West being to blame for this war. But come on: the lies about 2014, the war in Donetsk where Ukraine supposedly bombed its own civilians – that’s going way too far. You could argue that’s what they believe, but if you leave it at that without clearly stating the reasons why Russia started this war, what are you doing? The director could have chosen to provide that opposing perspective when those soldiers were saying such things, but she didn’t. And that places this film in a propaganda perspective.’
The professor is repeatedly interrupted by a group of men in the front row. ‘This is propaganda’, they shout. ‘This is what the media does, telling lies. A wonderful waste of time talking to people who are convinced of everything but their prejudices. People like you.’ Some attendees start clapping.
‘WEAKEST PROPAGANDA EVER’
Schuurman continues his point about the absence of ‘critical context’, but is interrupted by panel member André Gerrits, professor of international studies and global politics: ‘They’re soldiers, not academics.’
‘If we can’t keep a cool head during a two-hour documentary showing Russians gluing their fingers together, then we’ve already lost’, argues panel member Brandon Zicha, assistant professor of philosophy, politics and economics. ‘If this is propaganda, it’s the weakest Russian propaganda I’ve ever seen. And if this is Russia’s attempt at communicating that they’re not a threat, they’ve succeeded.’
The director concludes the discussion herself: ‘This is not a geopolitical documentary, there are plenty of those out there already. It’s an observational film where I, as a fly on the wall, present the stories of ordinary people in a conflict that has turned the world upside down. We can’t understand each other if we don’t see each other. I hope this film brings us a little bit closer together.’