"Russia has fallen into madness!"
To understand how Russia could fall into madness, how their country of origin, where their families were born, became a true evil empire. This is the ambition of Ksenia Bolchakova and Veronika Dorman, two French journalists of Russian descent (also best friends), through the documentary released last April, "Russia, a people that keeps in step".
On Feb. 24, 2022, at the time of the first bombs dropped in Ukraine, the two young women explained that their world was collapsing; their country of origin had become the aggressor. They were suddenly thrown into a new abyss, into unprecedented suffering and unbearable guilt. "We, speaking Russian with our children in Paris, were speechless, helpless...", they told FranceTvPro.
Their documentary, made of images, words and pain, is a search for meaning and purpose. To understand the deterioration of the country and this population, both intimidated and complicit, "to understand how Russians could sink into this madness and how Russia could get lost in a war that was both fratricidal and suicidal", said the two friends, who returned to their country of origin, the land of their ancestors, and traveled Russian roads for three weeks.
Back in France, they painted the portrait of "a society in which the culture of violence is swallowed from early childhood. Where state propaganda has turned the notions of good and evil, acceptable and intolerable, upside down." The two journalists also "illustrate how propaganda distorts reality and the mind. How Putin's Russia became a nation that barely flinches and keeps in step."
(SR and AsD for Tagtik/Source: France TV Pro/Illustration: Unsplash)
