Is it true that in Gostomel the Ukrainians filmed a staged video about the “atrocities of Russian troops”?

In mid-August 2022, a video went viral on the Internet about how a production was allegedly filmed in Ukraine about “the atrocities of Russian troops against civilians.” Vladimir Solovyov also spoke about this. We have verified the accuracy of such statements.

The video we are interested in lasts only 15 seconds. At the beginning of the recording, a man off-screen can be heard saying the command “Start!” in Russian, after which a group of people in casual clothes begin to run and scream. At the end of the video the command “Stop!” is heard. There are also people with professional filming equipment in the footage. All this happens against the backdrop of burning and mangled cars, as well as a destroyed five-story building. In addition, at the bottom of the video there is an overlaid inscription in Ukrainian: “What a time, this is the kind of movie we’re making! Gostomel, 2022, endless February.”

Based on the above footage, some Internet users concluded: this is proof that Ukraine is staging war crimes of the Russian army against civilians. For example, on August 12, TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov reposted in his Telegram channel a post with this video and the following caption: “In Gostomel, the “directors” of the Kyiv regime are filming a staged video about the alleged atrocities of Russian troops against civilians.” And TV presenter Sergei Karnaukhov shared his colleague’s post and added: “Important personnel for the future tribunal. The problem with these filmings is that for the extras they shoot civilians and take them to the “film set.” For the sake of plausibility, our military are executed on camera. This is all the reality of modern Ukraine.”

Commented video and on the official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in the UK: “This is how Kiev propaganda supported by Western media is created. Just watch this video. #StopNaziUkraine (“Stop Nazi Ukraine.” — Ed.).” Similar post was (already deleted) and on Twitter from the Russian Embassy in Spain: “If the atrocities of the Russian military do not exist, then they must be invented. Staged footage of civilians fleeing Russian “aggression” in Gostomel.” Such posts were distributed across various Telegram channels (here, here And here), public pages on VKontakte (here, here And here) and personal pages on Facebook (here, here, here And here).

The video was actually filmed in Gostomel, an urban village in the Buchansky district of the Kyiv region, which can be understood by the building with a huge hole in the background. For example, a photo of this five-story building with the indication Gostomel is available in the agency’s photo database The Associated Press (AP) and on the Twitter account of the photographer European Pressphoto Agency Romana Pilipea, and this house was also shown in a report about Gostomel on the TV channel “1+1"

It is also important to note that the viral video is superimposed with the inscription @yarikfors, which was not covered up in any way - this is the signature of the author of the video from TikTok. Original entry posted there on August 8, at the time of writing this text it has 1.2 million views and more than 2,500 comments. According to account on TikTok, the author's name is Yaroslav Zarudny. We managed to find several pages of this person on various social networks and websites (somewhere his last name is indicated as Forsik-Zarudny, which corresponds to his nickname on TikTok). From the descriptions it follows that he is related to film production: for example, Zarudny’s profile is posted on a resource for finding job offers for actors, models and singers Acmodasi, on his page in “VKontakte» many posts about castings and filming of various projects, and in his Facebook it is indicated that Yaroslav works at the Artforms Production television studio.

In addition, on August 9, before his video went viral, in the comments under his video on TikTok, Yaroslav wrote that this was filming a reconstruction of events in Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel for a documentary film with artistic elements.

AP Agency contacted with Forsik-Zarudny, and he said that the video was shot on the set of the Ukrainian film “Region of Heroes”. Forsik is reportedly working as a casting assistant for the film. “I posted the video for my audience. I didn’t even think that it would get a million views and speculation on such a topic would begin,” said the author of the video and shared a photograph in which he lies on a stretcher and is covered in fake blood. The photo was posted on August 10 in the official Instagram account film company IdeaFilms, owned by producer and actor Alex Komarovsky. There are other photos in the post, one of which shows the above-mentioned five-story building and burnt cars. The caption states: “Large-scale filming of the Region of Heroes film reconstruction in tragic locations,” and also notes the producers, director and cameraman of the film and the company Patriot Rental, which provides filming equipment.

The start of filming “Area of ​​Heroes” in the Kyiv region became known on July 27, 2022: he himself announced this Komarovsky, and State agency Ukraine on film issues, and an announcement also appeared on official page film on Facebook. According to the synopsis, the film will be “the first large-scale film reconstruction of real heroic stories of ordinary Ukrainians who personally played the main roles in the cinema.” A total of five stories are expected in the tape. August 30 came out the first teaser, in which you can again see the same destroyed five-story building from TikTok.

Thus, the video being distributed depicts the filming process of the documentary film, which the creators never hid. However, the Internet tried to pass it off as a staged video for a Western audience. In conclusion, we note that in the Telegram channel “Operation Z: Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring”, from where Vladimir Solovyov made his repost, the caption for the video is already fixed: the phrase “staged video” was replaced with “some kind of propaganda fake “movie”.”

Cover photo: screenshot of video @yarikfors

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

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