A film with Kremlin propaganda was shown in Australia

Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations / Facebook

On Monday, March 18, Australia’s national broadcaster ABC aired a documentary “Ukraine’s War: The Other Side” British journalist Sean Langan. The tape covers the war from the side of the occupiers and spreads Kremlin propaganda theses. The Embassy of Ukraine in Australia and Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko condemned the screening of the film.

In February, the Ukrainian writer and director Iryna Tsylyk drew attention to the film in which the Briton decided to give a speech to the Russian soldiers he visited near Avdiivka. Then it was shown by the British TV channel ITV1, and the review was published in The Guardian.

“Quote: “We are not invaders”, – says one Russian soldier, justifying Moscow’s bloody and unprovoked invasion of its neighbor. “We’re just protecting what’s ours” Tsylyk wrote about this tape at the time.

“So you understand. Not everything is so clear-cut, you need to listen to both sides, in particular about the fact that the footage from Buchi is a production, blah blah. And all this is broadcast on a British TV channel. And the Guardian writes about it with understanding and sympathy“, she explained.

Almost a month later, the Australian broadcaster ABC aired Langan’s film on Four Corners.

For show publicly
the Embassy of Ukraine in Australia and Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko reacted. They called the film the “equivalent of a bowl of vomit” and said the broadcaster should be ashamed of itself for airing “complete rubbish”.

“He [фільм] unquestioningly repeated and broadcast countless outright lies, distortions of history, racist claims, and propaganda narratives originating from the Kremlin. Because it fully corresponds to the interests of the Russian dictator Putin“, the statement says.

Myroshnychenko added that he would demand a meeting with ABC managing director David Anderson to understand how such propaganda material could be aired on Australia’s national broadcaster.

The protest expressed by the embassy was supported by the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations. Activists and the Ukrainian community of Sydney staged a rally in front of the ABC studio.

“It’s nonsense for the ABC to pretend it’s fearless journalism giving us “extraordinary” access to “the other side”. This is an orchestrated, Kremlin-controlled media stunt intended to justify Russia’s heinous invasion of a sovereign country“, the statement of the Federation says.

In turn, ABC continues to defend the showing of the film, which, according to a spokesperson for the company, offers audiences a “rare look into the lives of Russian soldiers.” However, the post with the announcement and trailer of the tape on the X network (formerly Twitter) was closed for comments.