The scene: A pine forest near Izium, a city on the Donets River in eastern Ukraine. There are empty graves all around. This is where Russian soldiers buried the hundreds of civilians they killed in the spring of 2022.
The graves are empty because the bodies in them have been exhumed for examination. Some of the people buried here were horribly tortured. Along with Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, this is the site of some of the most serious Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Petra, one of the visitors here on this day, simply notes that the sand in the forest feels like the sand you might find on a beach, a strange feeling in this particular place. The forest is really beautiful, she adds, and the pine needles smell nice. The camera follows her as she walks around. Later, Petra says that everything here must be faked.
“This is excellent material for Ukrainian propaganda, to cultivate hatred against the Russians,” she explains. “It’s like something out of a textbook on nationalism.”
This is an actual scene from Czech director Robin Kvapil’s latest documentary, “The Great Patriotic Trip.” Kvapil took three Czech civilians, who hold anti-Ukrainian, pro-Russian views, to Ukraine to see the reality of Russia’s war there. Kvapil and his team filmed the travelers, and the travelers also filmed themselves, commenting on what they saw.
Threats made against documentary director
The three civilians are what one might call representatives of the “anti-woke.” They’re opposed to environmental politics, refugees, the European Union and any gender-related issues. They believe the war in Ukraine is all about the West opposing Russia, and they are disturbed by the Ukrainian refugees in their own country.
The premiere of the documentary took place in the Czech Republic on August 21. The choice of date was no coincidence: it’s the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The film has already made waves at home. Over the past weeks, most major Czech media have reported on it, and it’s become the subject of intense debate on social media. Kvapil, 40, who comes from the eastern Czech city of Brno, has received both support and criticism, as well as anonymous threats against himself and his family, he told DW.
The public debate surrounding the film focuses on the strength and danger of Russian influence in the Czech Republic, whether and how divided the country is, and whether the civilian conspiracy theorists in the film are being treated unfairly or exploited.
The documentary was released at a time of particular political tension in the country. There will be parliamentary elections in early October and the right-wing, populist ANO party is a frontrunner. ANO (“yes” in English) is the party of former prime minister and billionaire Andrej Babis which tends toward pro-Russian policies. Additionally two other parties that are both pro-Russian — a communist party and a far-right party — are also likely to get into parliament.
Seeking conspiracy theorists
Kvapil found his three protagonists through a newspaper advertisement in September last year. The advertisement said, “For a documentary, we are looking for men and women who have doubts about information coming from the mainstream media about the war in Ukraine. The film crew will give you the opportunity to find out the truth.”
He ended up with Ivo, Nikola and Petra, all in their mid-50s. Petra, the daughter of a communist official, studied theology. Nikola is a cattle farmer, and Ivo can often be found working in his allotment garden. Ivo says he doesn’t check news on the internet to see if it’s true but whether it “feels right” to him.
Kvapil, his team and the three civilians traveled together in a minibus to the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Along the way Petra sang the Russian national anthem.
In Kharkiv, the three civilians and the film crew see the massive destruction in the city with their own eyes: a bombed-out hospital and the Saltivka neighborhood, where everything is closed and almost completely uninhabitable thanks to Russian bombing. They visit children attending school in bunkers, speak with residents, drive to a village near the frontline and then to the forest with the empty graves near Izium.
Ivo, Nikola and Petra talk about what they’re seeing, and their comments range from the shocking to the abhorrent. The Russians don’t mean to hit civilians or sick people, they say, reasoning that sometimes rockets miss their mark. And Nikola says that it’s possible Russian soldiers sexually assaulted children because they knew they would die soon and wanted to have sex one more time. That’s just how men are, he explains.
Did the road trip change hearts and minds?
Sometimes during the film, doubts do seem to creep in. When a Ukrainian man recounts how he lost his wife, his children and all of his neighbors in the Russian bombing, Petra hugs him.
Watching the film, one can’t help but wait for the three Czech civilians to come to their senses. But on the return journey, they tell the film crew that if the purpose of the trip was to “re-educate” them, then it didn’t work. Their opinions have not changed.
In the final scene, the director discusses this with them. “I’ve learned that there’s a world where evil wins, where people like Ivo, Nikola and Petra see everything but continue to spread the narrative of a monstrous regime committing genocide,” he tells them. “And if they win elections in the free West and weaken our system, then some of us might not be here for much longer because anybody could just kill us.”
Nikola nods. “My friend, that’s how it’s going to happen,” he replies.
In the film, it’s unclear how he meant that. But later, when Kvapil asks him if he is joking, Nikola says he did mean it.
In the documentary, Kvapil himself comes to a dark conclusion. “I’ve learned that it’s me who has to change,” he says on camera. Trying to understand everyone and reach an agreement at any cost could be our greatest source of weakness, the reason these wars are lost. First, the information war, then the real war.”
This article was originally written in German.
