Photograph by Ruptly
A Russian news channel has claimed that a documentary made by German state media outlet not only had major discrepancies but that some interviewed were, in fact, actors.
In this documentary, a man claiming to be a “volunteer” for the Novorussia army gives his accounts of the fight on the frontlines. The overall documentary portrays the conflict in the east of Ukraine as a fight between Russia and Ukraine, this, however, is false and a downright lie in itself.
From the outset, we can see that the documentary was going to be lopsided. Entitled ‘Strongman Putin’ and produced by ZDF, the documentary portrays the conflict as an invasion of Russian soldiers coming in over the border, and without concrete evidence of this happening.
Russia 1 channel have suggested that the German broadcaster used an actor to play the part of the “volunteer” telling his story. The problem with this is that the person named as “Igor” who the broadcaster interviewed in fact had nothing to do with the fight in the east of Ukraine.
“Igor is a volunteer for the separatist fighters, a fact which he is proud of,” the documentary by ZDF says.
The man named “Igor” was in actual fact an unemployed 27-year-old living in Kaliningrad named Yury Lobyskin, he had nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine at any point.
“A German journalist called Dietmar came to see me as well as a film crew from Germany and said ‘let’s film a documentary about you’ saying that you went from Kaliningrad to Donetsk to fight for the separatists,” Lobyskin admitted. ‘Dietmar’ is ZDF political observer Dietmar Schumann, the Rossiya 1 report states.
“[Dietmar] said to me that they needed me to say that I was wounded, despite the fact that I have never be wounded. Firstly they took me to Moscow and then two hours later I was in Rostov.”
Lobyskin was met at the airport by the German channel’s Russian-speaking producer Valery Bobkov, who offered Yury 50,000 rubles (some $700 at current rate) to take part in the documentary.
“[Bobkov] trained me for three or four days. He told me exactly what to say and encouraged me to write things down,”Lobyskin said.
Mr.Lobyskin also said that he had been brought to the Donbas region and was instructed by the ZDF crew in what to say and do during the filming of the documentary. This sort of thing is not uncommon, trying to demonize Russia while at the same time deflecting from the real issues such as the undemocratic and illegal overthrow of the former government of Ukraine, as well as the continued violations by Ukraine armed forces of the cease-fire agreement.
Gerard Dinnen