“Intercepted” by 🇺🇦 Oksana Karpovych

Today, I’d like to tell you about the 2024 documentary “Intercepted” by 🇺🇦 filmmaker Oksana Karpovych.

TL;DR: the film combines peaceful visual scenes of war-torn Ukraine with the audio of phone calls that russian soldiers had with people back in russia, where the russians gloat about their crimes and violence. The calls were intercepted by Ukrainian security services in 2022. The film is available for streaming for free on Arte until 2026, and it appears to work in at least several European countries. I have positive reports from 🇬🇧, 🇩🇪, and 🇪🇪. It’s also available on several other platforms.

Here is the trailer.

I found the style to be curious, and distinct from other documentaries about russian invasion of Ukraine. The visual imagery is peaceful, calm, and serene. You don’t see any gore, violence, or actual battles. But you do see a lot of aftermath of russian crimes and bombing. War-torn landscape. Destroyed buildings, bridges, and vehicles. People’s homes partially destroyed, their belongings scattered and looted, windows shattered.

Initial scenes are without any people, and I thought that the whole film would be like that. But soon after, people do appear, and go about their lives after russia has bombed and attacked them. They calmly sort through their belongings, repair the street, or just sit among the rubble and think what to do next. But no one says a word, and that is a clear artistic choice: all the talking is left for the russians.

russian phone calls intercepted by Ukraine’s security service SBU became a curious artifact of russia’s full-scale invasion, and recordings of them appeared quite early in 2022. “Intercepted” uses a selection of these recordings from 2022. russians openly discuss their crimes in Ukraine, and it’s particularly striking when a call of russians discussing looting are overlaid on imagery of a looted home, suggesting that it could have been these same russians right here just a moment ago. It may of course not be factually accurate—it likely wasn’t THIS exact russian looting THIS exact home—but as a metaphor and film scene, it’s striking.

Some imagery takes a break from the calls, to just show some war-torn landscape, cityscape or buildings, or people taking a break. The scars are visible, but the flag still flies.

I recommend everyone to watch this film, but especially those who claim that this is only “Putin’s war.” There was no “Putin” on any of those calls. It was russians openly and proudly discussing their crimes without much remorse.

The entire russian population has by now brainwashed itself into a self-perpetuating vicious circle of imperialist aggression and madness. Some russians on the front line question why are they there and what are they fighting for, only to be met with more madness from back home, encouraging for the aggression, crimes, and killing to continue and become worse.

I want to contextualize this movie by putting the russian crimes in context. Too many people in the world see russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a transaction without any moral dimension, to be fought out with force. Might makes right, stronger takes all. In this world view, international law, morality, and the people affected are completely ignored. There is very little mention of the affected people and their suffering. It is easier to ignore the russian crimes on occupied Ukrainian territories (which are the same crimes that russia has always done on all the lands it has attacked and occupied).

russia has invested immense resources to make much of the world see the russian imperialism, and aggression, and crimes in this distorted way, where concepts like “humanity”, “truth”, “justice”, “freedom”, “crimes”, and “aggression” have completely lost their meaning or are used in a perverted distorted way.

I represent the opposite world view where these things still matter and mean what they always did, despite how any russian or Nazi cult attempts to distort them. russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 is the clearest fight between right and wrong, good and evil, freedom and tyranny, that many of us will see in our entire lifetime.

I grant that there are many conflicts around the world that require careful study to understand their depth and nuance. There is no nuance to russian invasion of Ukraine, or more broadly russian imperialism and its aggression and crimes, as witnessed and confirmed by all of russia’s free neighbors over the past several centuries. russia is imperialist aggressor and evil, and all that free Ukraine is doing, is defending itself against this evil. The only “nuance” comes from russian propaganda that confuses your sense of right and wrong.

This film can help you shake off the russian poison, and see russian evil and crimes for what they really are.

Although the film was released already in 2024, and was featured at several festivals, it is now gaining some wider distribution. The trigger for making this post was that I learned recently that the full film is available for streaming for free on Arte until 2026. I am not sure where exactly it works geographically, but it appears to work in at least several European countries. I have positive reports from 🇬🇧, 🇩🇪, and 🇪🇪. It is also available on other platforms.