Join the AFUO in helping to STOP Russian Propaganda in Australia!

image of Join the AFUO in helping to STOP Russian Propaganda in Australia!

The Antenna Documentary Film Festival plans to screen a film called “Russians at War” that seeks to ‘normalise’ Russian soldiers and absolve them of their widespread and systematic crimes. The Russian soldiers in the film are shown tired and weary, but laughing, dancing, joking. But they are not innocent victims. They are contracted soldiers, who are paid three times the average Russian wage, and who have freely signed up to join an occupying army on the sovereign territory of Ukraine.

Join us

Our campaign aims to persuade Antenna from screening “Russians at War”, thus preventing further spread of Russian propaganda ...

The Antenna Documentary Film Festival plans to screen a film called “Russians at War” that seeks to ‘normalise’ Russian soldiers and absolve them of their widespread and systematic crimes. The Russian soldiers in the film are shown tired and weary, but laughing, dancing, joking. But they are not innocent victims. They are contracted soldiers, who are paid three times the average Russian wage, and who have freely signed up to join an occupying army on the sovereign territory of Ukraine.

Join us

Our campaign aims to persuade Antenna from screening “Russians at War”, thus preventing further spread of Russian propaganda.

About

Campaign for Ukraine is being led by the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO), the peak body for 22 community organisations throughout Australia. AFUO is a member of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), the global voice for the Ukrainian diaspora.

#standwithukraine

+

Urgent call to Antenna Documentary Film Festival – withdraw ‘Russians at War’ film which promotes Russian propaganda immediately!

1,340 emails sent

With this campaign, we would like to ensure everyone can voice their concerns and opinion to the organisers of the Antenna Documentary Film Festival, and its sponsors, informing them of the consequences of sponsoring and screeing Russian propaganda in Australia. Our goal is to have Antenna make the right decision and cancel the screening of 'Russians At War'.

Compose your email

Name

Email

Subject:

I am writing to express my utter disappointment and distress about the decision to include the film “Russians at War” by Anastasia Trofimova in the Antenna Documentary Film Festival, even after appeals from the Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia, the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO), the Ukrainian Council of NSW (UCNSW), and many in the strong and resilient Australian-Ukrainian community.

This film is not an “anti-war” documentary - it is carefully orchestrated propaganda, which seeks to humanise Russian soldiers, manipulate emotions and obscure the reality of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.

Let’s look at the facts:

The film seeks to ‘normalise’ Russian soldiers and absolve them of their widespread and systematic crimes  The Russian soldiers in the film are shown tired and weary, but laughing, dancing, joking. But they are not innocent victims. They are contracted soldiers, who are paid three times the average Russian wage, and who have freely signed up to join an occupying army on the sovereign territory of Ukraine.

The film fails to acknowledge that Russia invaded a sovereign nation in violation of international law. It does not mention war crimes. It does not criticise the Putin regime. Without this context, audience members are encouraged to feel sympathy for Russian soldiers as just ‘regular’ people, instead of recognising them as active participants in a genocidal war.

But Russia’s war against Ukraine has been a brutal war of occupation, devastating cities, schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure. Tragically, the names of Ukrainian cities have become iconic for the destruction and devastation inflicted by Russian soldiers - Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol. Ukrainian authorities are currently investigating more than 140,000 registered war crimes, including summary executions, torture, sexual violence, and the forced deportation of children.

These crimes were not conducted by Putin - but ‘regular’ Russian soldiers.

The film has been made with the support of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Director Anastasiya Trofimova claims the film was made without the consent of the Kremlin, however Trofimova spent 7 months embedded with a Russian army unit in occupied Ukraine. It is ludicrous and insulting to suggest that Trofimova was able to film Russian soldiers without the permission, knowledge and direct oversight of Russia’s Ministry of Defense and intelligence agencies – the FSB and GRU.

Trofimova was a producer for the Russian state-controlled media “RT”, and over 7 years produced 11 films for an outlet that has been sanctioned for its role in spreading propaganda, and disinformation (since 2022 by the UK, EU, US, and Canada; as well as banned from broadcasting and restricted online in Australia and other countries). A number of RT employees have been indicted by the US Department of Justice.

In an interview with a Russian-language newspaper, Trifomova refers to the soldiers as ‘heroes’. This is far from the dispassionate even-handed treatment you would expect from a documentarian – instead, it directly echoes Kremlin talking points.

Trofimova claimed that Russia “hasn’t participated in wars for many years,” — neatly ‘forgetting’ wars & occupations in Transnistria (1992-93), Abkhazia (1994-96), Chechnya (1999-2009), Georgia (2008) & Syria (2015-2022), and annexation of Ukrainian Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine (2014).

The Antenna Festival team has failed to do adequate due diligence on this film, its pro-Kremlin narratives, and its director. And since facts about the film were shared with Antenna’s partners as part of a community campaign which launched on Sunday, two sponsor logos have disappeared from the Antenna website. Clearly sponsors are questioning Antenna’s decision to platform Russian propaganda in Australia and are scrambling to protect their reputations.

Moreover, it is shocking and disheartening to think public funding is being used to sponsor the screening of such a film. Allowing this film to be showcased lends credibility to a narrative which whitewashes Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion and the largest war in Europe since WW2, under the guise of neutrality and “bothsidesism.”

Recent evidence of captured Australian volunteer Oscar Jenkins, and multiple records of the abuse and murders by the Russian Army, reveal the way POWs are systematically treated by Russian soldiers – beaten, tortured, abused, put through filtration camps, denied medical aid, sexually assaulted, and humiliated.

As a documentary film festival, important to our local arts and culture, I urgently implore you to remove “Russians at War” from your program, in the interests of Australia’s strong support for values that oppose authoritarian agendas, war crimes, neutrality to an illegal invasion and mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people.

Would we tolerate a documentary on Nazi soldiers that omitted the Holocaust? Of course not. Yet, Antenna is effectively doing the same by presenting Russian invaders as complex, troubled individuals while ignoring their crimes.

The only right thing to do is to cancel the platforming of this pro-Kremlin propaganda film.

How we use the data you enter on this form

Do Gooder (the advocacy platform powering this online action) processes personal information from you that you enter on this form so that we can provide the functions and related services to you and The Campaigner (the organisation responsible for this online action) for their legitimate purposes, including possibly exporting it to other systems, and to effectively respond to enquiries and communications related to those services.

Specifically when you enter:

Your location data (residential address or postcode) it is used to locate your elected representative, to pre-populate your email signature and to provide The Campaigner with a visualisation of the location of the support for this campaign.
All other data you may enter, including your email address, name, telephone number, commentary and so on is used by The Campaigner to advocate for the campaign’s goals and where required may be sent to the target of the campaign.

The data collected by Do Gooder is also used by us in aggregate form to improve the service and may be held on your behalf outside your country of residence by our third party service providers. These providers are bound by contract to only use personal information on our behalf, in accordance with agreed terms. While the privacy laws of the country in which personal information is stored or transferred may be different from those in your country, we will always have safeguards in place when storing or transferring personal information. We will never sell, rent, loan or in any other way pass your information on to other parties other than to provide this service to you and The Campaigner.

The personal information collected by Do Gooder is held subject to a Data Processing Agreement between Do Gooder and The Campaigner in compliance with the EU's GDPR and Australian law.

Learn more about our privacy policy here

How is my data used?