S Viswanath

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has spilled into its third year. Despite US President Donald
Trump’s grandstanding that he will broker a lasting, amicable, mutually acceptable peace between the two warring sides, nothing has fructified on Ground Zero.

Both Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy have been holding their horses never loosening the bargaining bridle with President Trump floundering to find amicable agreement by orchestrating possible peace truce between the feuding foes.

It is against this rather bleak and embittered backdrop that the eponymously titled Russians At War the 128 mins documentary providing an insider account of the happenings from the frontline war zone, up, close and personal, makes for an interesting and insightful look on the ongoing strife from a people’s perspective and those that have volunteered to sign up for the never ending do or die battle.

The Russian Canadian filmmaker and documentarian Anastasia Trofimova’s fortuitous meeting with the middle-aged Ilya, entrained to join Russian forces as the bloody brutal battle rages on, and more so, him being ironically Ukrainian, pickling Anatasia’s news sense resulting in the revealing documentary for the world to see.

What makes the documentary different at times of situations like this is its focus on how ordinary citizens forced into taking sides and also enlist themselves in the cause of nation look at the harsh realities of war and the inevitable situations they are propelled into.

For example, says Ilya “the fog of war is so you fail to see the human side.” Further, he goes on to justify his taking the Russian side stating in the 2014 Ukraine war I lost my business and all my ties with Ukraine his parent nation, the country of birth.

Likewise, you have another soldier stating that he enlisted himself for the sake of his son so that he is not conscripted by the Russian army and be sent to the frontlines. Another bemoans the brotherly union I miss for Russians and Ukrainians are inseparable given the latter became a Republic of its own after the former Soviet Union’s disintegration in 1991 and with its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991.

It is such very intimate and personal accounts of the men in uniform fighting on the front facing death by the day and Damocles Sword of uncertainty looming over their heads that makes Russians At War a different documentary to experience and engage in.

Even as the war rages on with bombs and blitzkrieg keeps felling the foot soldiers on the frontline as they march on following the orders the irrepressible Anastasia having won the confidence of the battling soldiers is able to succinctly cull out the harsh realities of what a war does to ordinary people for the documentary brings to light that these valiant soldiers are not only disillusioned at what they have been drawn and forced to participate but unable to garner as to achieve what exactly they are fighting for their nation.

Of course, as is to be expected Anatasia’s captivating first-person account of the ongoing battle, which helps an outsider understand the ground reality beyond the barrage of daily headlines that they are bombarded with from all forms of media, has received both derisive flak and fulsome praise, on the position (partisan or otherwise) she is perceived to have taken in bringing to public domain the situation on the actual frontline.

The documentary tries to bring home the harsh message that these ordinary men who left the safety and security of their homestead have been driven to do so for very many personal reasons, skewed sense of national pride and patriotism, save their young and dear family and young children from having to go to battle in future, avenge the death of their friends felled by the bullets, and very many for the sumptuous sum they have all been promised once they return after performing their duties.

Ultimately, the documentary as it cruises through various curves and contours of the horrific happenings on the frontline proper, documenting the actual accounts of the people putting their lives in peril in order to safeguard their borders tries to show how the war machine’s propaganda has been working overtime with its nationalist and patriotic narratives only to raise doubts and disillusionment in their minds about the actual purpose of the pow-pow between Putin and Zelenskyy that they are actually fighting to survive in the hope of a safe return back home.

Moscow-born and Toronto-educated Anatasia Trofimova, who has been chronicling conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, brings to her war reportage portfolio yet another telling and terrifying tale of men who have been, and are being forcibly used, as mere pawns in the nefarious game of one-upmanship between the two warring heads and the high human cost it has been inflicting since these last three years it has been raging on.

The documentary, despite being defended by its makers as an ‘anti-war’ film, and though not in the league of ’20 Days of Mariupol’, has had to faced cancellations are several international film festivals and also proscribed by censors in other nations as well for its perceived ‘contentious’ content.

The film, which has been released direct to audiences since August 12, 2025 globally exclusively at www.russiansatwar.com had its World Premiere last September 2024 at the Venice Film Festival where it was received with a standing ovation which was closely followed by North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where, this critic was in attendance, saw the festival organisers, despite TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey’s explanations, forced to reschedule their screenings following protests at the time of film’s scheduled screening as also during the course of the film festival’s run.

“This is an unprecedented move for TIFF,” the organisers had said in a statement released being “forced to pause” planned screenings over the weekend. “We support civil discourse about and through films, including differences of opinion, and we fully support peaceful assembly,” going unheeded by the protests who stormed both the screening auditoriums as also the surrounding of the TIFF Lightbox, the main festival venue on King Street as also at the Scotiabank Theatre Richmond Multiplex.

S VISWANATH is a veteran film critic who officiates as JURY at several National & International Film Festivals. He deputises as CHIEF CINEMA CURATOR/PROGRAMMER & CREATIVE ADVISOR for Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). He also curates & advises on the selection of shorts & documentaries for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). Mr Viswanath is the author of “RANDOM REFLECTIONS: A Kaleidoscopic Musings on Kannada Cinema”.