Who had the “luck” to observe the “Russian spring” in the east of Ukraine was probably confused (if not shocked) by the fact that most of the protesters were quite young. Twenty-year-old boys with sincere ardor were shouting, “Russia, help us!” with Russian flags and flags of the Communist Party in their hands.
Even if we deduct Putin’s “tourists” who were brought en masse from the Russian territory, the question arises: why were young people who permanently live in Ukraine and know the “fraternal” country, moreover the USSR, only from TV screens, desperately eager to be saved by Russia?
The answer is in the last sentence. The “elder brother” started the war against Ukraine long before the annexation of the Crimea and invasion into the Donbas. Restrictions for importing goods, plotting agents in important sectors of military and governmental branches are proof that the Kremlin started the hybrid war long ago. One of the components of this process was the film industry which cultivated and prepared the ground for more serious actions.
I think that it is no secret that present-day Russian mass film industry is ideological and empty. The audience is “fed” with themes and plots, dictated and approved in the dull offices of some Ministry of the Truth: village, policemen, the Soviet Union, Great Patriotic War. This is a nice picture that covers proper mottos, such as “the police is honest,” “it was good to live in the USSR,” “military servicemen are the bravest,” “Russia is a great country.”
However, it should be mentioned that good films are shot in Russia, too, but most of them are so depressive and cruel, with such an intricate plot that they are not appropriate for being shown on screens, but there was a time, when in films the police were drinking vodka, some Dukalis could ironically tell himself a fool, and the series like DMB depicted real army absurd and lack of the army as such.
The mottos often got a different tonality. The nice, but monotonous, picture was tempered by negative which concerned the former USSR republics. Bad guys for a long time mostly came from the Baltic countries and of course were equalized to fascists. For example, in D Day Porechenkov’s hero is captured by radical Latvian patriots who want to make the “Russian Ivan” liquidate the leadership of their country in order to come to power. Of course, the heads of these “patriots” were shaved and they were wearing black clothes.
As for Ukrainians, another negative image was shaped as well. Khokhliandia in Russian films was usually represented by negative images and was associated with stupidity, specific pronunciation of the sound “g,” and dependency on Russia, which is the only place where they can find normal jobs, and with hostile attitude to the “fraternal” people.
Not only this kind of “maligning” was present in the movies, but some animated movies as well: in quite a popular cartoon Aliosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmei the Kyiv prince is shown as a thief who wanted to steal people’s gold. In such a way the Russian propaganda was brainwashing even children, in order to cultivate from the early childhood their “love” to the people which it called “fraternal” in public.
All these films and cartoons were freely shown and continue to be shown on Ukrainian TV channels. In the prime time Ukrainians were looking at the picture of happy USSR, NKVD heroes, and stupid Khokhols, someone was outraged, but some started thinking, “Maybe it’s true? Maybe we should go back to the USSR, because it was so nice there? Maybe we should join Russia, because there are honest police and courageous cadets?” I remember my classmates in the form 6-7 after watching the series about Russian special services were running across the woods with sticks, looking for Chechens; and there are plenty of such warriors all over Ukraine, especially in the east – hundreds of them.
Unfortunately, Russian propaganda in cinema has succeeded: the result of its befuddling has become one of the instruments that activated the separatist movement in the Donbas, where quite young people, who saw the USSR and Russia only in films, took part.
We cannot say that Ukraine does not fight the Russian media aggression. In the end of July the National Council on Television and Radio called to “refuse from broadcasting the films, series, programs, and other products that form a positive image of the military forces, internal forces, and special forces of the Russian Federation, as well as the content which can be perceived as propaganda of war and instigation of national hostility.” About this time the State Cinema Agency of Ukraine banned the screening of two films, Poddubny and White Guard in Ukraine.
However, television is still broadcasting Russian series, propaganda and “shaping of positive image” of force structures haven’t disappeared anywhere. Such channels as ICTV and Ukraina show mostly films and series with marionette heroes in police uniform, prosecutors, workers of special services, who are presented as honest and all-knowing, when real police throw to police vans even old women who came to the meeting in support of Ukraine.
Of course, everyone has the right to watch what s/he likes, but there are great questions to the most of Russian films. Can this propaganda be called films? Unfortunately, modern Russian media sphere is absolutely impregnated by “proper” ideology which is manipulating and zombiefying, making people damage the country where they grew up, go to various dubious meetings, seize administration buildings, and even kill for a nice, but mythical TV picture.
