‘Russia’s Rambo,’ once a Putin favorite, says he’d now fight for Ukraine and feels ‘nothing but hatred’ for his home country
![‘Russia’s Rambo,’ once a Putin favorite, says he’d now fight for Ukraine and feels ‘nothing but hatred’ for his home country ‘Russia’s Rambo,’ once a Putin favorite, says he’d now fight for Ukraine and feels ‘nothing but hatred’ for his home country](https://citizentv.obs.af-south-1.myhuaweicloud.com/80800/conversions/Artur-og_image.webp)
Artur Smolyaninov arrives at the opening ceremony of the 31st Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow on June 19, 2009.
Russian actor Artur Smolyaninov was the star of one of President
Vladimir Putin’s favorite films – about a Soviet unit making a
last-ditch stand against Afghan insurgents. Now he is classified as a “foreign
agent” and faces criminal investigation.
Smolyaninov
was the hero of “Devyataya Rota” (The 9th Company), a Russian feature film that
came out in 2005. He played the part of the last soldier standing during a
battle in Afghanistan, which Soviet
forces occupied for a decade. He was often described as
Russia’s Rambo, a nod to the US action movies starring Sylvester Stallone.
Much
has changed since then. Smolyaninov is in exile and in a recent interview said
he was prepared to fight on Ukraine’s side and kill Russian soldiers. He told
Novaya Gazeta last week: “I feel nothing but hatred to the people on the other
(Russian) side of the frontline. And if I were there on the ground, there’d be
no mercy.”
He
said a former colleague had gone to fight on the Russian side. “Would I shoot
him? Without any doubt! Do I keep my options to go fight for Ukraine open?
Absolutely! This is the only way for me. And if I were to go to this war, I
would only fight for Ukraine.”
A
few days later, the Russian Ministry of Justice classified the actor as a
foreign agent.
Alexander
Bastrykin, the head of the Russia’s Investigative Committee, also ordered that
a criminal case be opened against Smolyaninov.
Smolyaninov has been highly critical of
the campaign in Ukraine. He recently recorded a Soviet-era song – Temnaya Noch (Dark
Night) – with reworked lyrics.
It included the lines: “Take a look, occupier, How
maternity homes are without power, How children sit in shelters. And how books
are drowned. The Russian night Has reached schools and hospitals.”
Another
verse referred to “a bunker, Where one Führer hides, And a bald little cook,
Feeds the Fuhrer from a spoon.” The cook was a reference to Yevgeny Prigozhin,
who runs the Wagner private military company and won catering contracts from
the Kremlin.
When
he first spoke out against the war last summer, Smolyaninov, who at the time he
was in Russia, told an interviewer it was “a catastrophe, everything collapsed:
ashes, smoke, stench, tears.”
Last
October, a Moscow district court imposed a fine of 30,000 rubles (430 US
dollars) against Smolyaninov on charges of discrediting the Russian armed
forces. That same month, he left Russia and is thought to be in Latvia at
present.
Smolyaninov
recounted how he’d crossed the Russian border into Norway. “I crossed the
border on foot… You just walk 30 meters and there are completely different
people in front of you. They are so soft. Even the look is different.”
The
film “Devyataya Rota” was so popular that Putin welcomed the actors and crew,
including Smolyaninov to his residence outside Moscow in November 2005, where
he put on a special showing of the movie.
The Kremlin said that after watching the film, Putin
talked with director Fyodor Bondarchuk and the leading actors, including
Smolyaninov.
Russian
state news agency RIA Novosti reported at the time that Putin declared that the
film “takes the soul, you immerse yourself in the film.”
“The
film is very strong, such a real serious thing about the war and people who
found themselves in extreme conditions in this war and showed themselves very
worthy,” Putin said at the time.
The
Russian Justice Ministry has added a number of others to its list of foreign
agents in recent days, including music critic Artemy Troitsky and several
journalists.
“These
people were put on the register under article 7 of Russian law on the control
of the activities of persons under foreign influence,” according to Russian
state news agency TASS.
It
was also reported this weekend that two well-known theatrical actors had been
fired from the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater for criticizing the war in Ukraine. Dmitry
Nazarov and his wife Olga Vasilyeva were dismissed by the artistic director of
the theater, Konstantin Khabensky, who accused the actors of “anti-Russian
sentiments.”
The
state news agency TASS confirmed the duo had been fired, without specifying a reason.
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