Film truth not to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s liking

The documentary "Our people - the others" by the journalist Arkady Mamontov, shown on the TV station "Rossiya" on 1 February, has not taken the Ukrainian military agency's fancy.

According to a statement released on 3 February by the Defence Ministry's press office, the film makes an attempt "to trace and prove the involvement of Ukrainian soldiers in the events in the Caucasus in August 2008". It said that the film was provocative and was aimed at discrediting the country and its armed forces in the eyes of the Russian, Ukrainian and international public.

It argued that the film was based on mere assumptions and dubious evidence. It was "unprofessionally produced and there was no documentary evidence of involvement by soldiers from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the conflict between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. Even the author himself suggested in his video slander that he did not have genuine confirmation of the involvement of Ukrainian soldiers in this conflict, and that the entire "evidence" section of the film was based merely on "gossip" - testimonies from so-called witnesses."

This reaction is very similar to the official Ukrainian view of another film about the August conflict in the Caucasus: "War 08.08.08. The Art of Betrayal." Last November the temporary commission of the Verkhovna Rada charged with investigating the circumstances behind the sale of Ukrainian weapons to Georgia organized a showing of the film with the help of the Russian embassy. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry then deemed the film "provocative and fabricated", and protested to the Russian embassy.

In his own programme "Special Correspondent" (where the film was shown), Arkady Mamontov published the results of his journalistic investigation devoted to Ukraine's involvement in the armed conflict in South Ossetia.

"Yushchenko's ‘Orange' regime, which simply hates Russia, will do everything it can to paint over and conceal the truth," said the author. "What was so despicable about the war? What did the Ukrainian mercenaries do, sent there by Yushchenko? They formed so-called diversionary groups, which followed the model of Hitler's Abwehr in June 1941: they captured commanders, killed soldiers, cut off means of communication. Mixed Ukrainian and Georgian diversionary groups tried to do the same in the rear of our 58th army. How can they deny this, when we have living witnesses?!"

Mamontov claims that mobilization was secretly carried out in Ukraine. And he argues that on 12-13 August reservists were called up. "We found them.

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