CNN
—
Russian actor Artur Smolyaninov was the star of President Vladimir Putin’s favorite movie. The film depicts Soviet troops making a final stand against militants in Afghanistan. Now he is classified as a “foreign agent” and faces criminal investigation.
Smolyaninov was the main character in the 2005 Russian feature film Devyataya Rota (9th Squadron). He played the role of the last soldier standing during the fighting in Afghanistan, which Soviet forces had occupied for his decade. He was often described as the Russian Rambo in honor of the US action films starring Sylvester Stallone.
A lot has changed since then. In his exile, Smolyaninov said in his recent interview that he was ready to fight on the side of Ukraine and kill Russian soldiers. He told Novaya Gazeta last week: If I were on the ground, there would be no mercy.
He said a former colleague went to fight on the Russian side. “Will I shoot him? Definitely! Do I leave the option to fight for Ukraine? Absolutely! This is the only way for me. If I go to this war, I will fight for Ukraine. I will fight only for
A few days later, the Russian Ministry of Justice classified the actor as a foreign operative.
The chairman of the Russian Commission of Inquiry, Alexander Bastrikin, also ordered criminal proceedings against Smolyaninov.
Smolyaninov was highly critical of the campaign in Ukraine. He recently recorded a Soviet-era song Temnaya Noch (Dark Night) with reworked lyrics.
Hear what some Russians think of Putin’s invasion
It contained lines like this: And how the book drowns. Russian nights reached schools and hospitals. ”
Another poem mentions “a bunker in which one Führer hides, and a bald little cook feeding the Führer from a spoon.” The cook referred to Evgeny Prigozhin, who ran Wagner’s private military company and won a catering contract from the Kremlin.
When speaking out against the war for the first time last summer, Smolyaninov, who was in Russia at the time, told an interviewer that the war was “a catastrophe, and everything collapsed: ash, smoke, stench, tears.”
Last October, the Moscow District Court fined Smolyaninov 30,000 rubles (US$430) for discrediting the Russian military. In the same month he left Russia and is believed to be now in Latvia.
Smolyaninov recounted crossing the Russian border into Norway. “I crossed the border on foot…just walking 30 meters and I see completely different people in front of me. They are very soft.
The film “Devyataya Rota” was so popular that Putin hosted a special screening of the film in November 2005, welcoming the actors and crew, including Smolyaninov, to his residence on the outskirts of Moscow.
The Kremlin said that after seeing the film, Putin spoke with the main actors, including director Fyodor Bondarchuk and Smolyaninov.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported at the time that Putin declared the film “soul-stealing and immersive”.
“This film is very powerful and a very serious issue about war and the people who went to extremes in this war and showed great worth,” Putin said at the time.
The Russian Ministry of Justice recently added music critic Artemy Troitsky and several journalists to its list of foreign agents.
“These persons were registered under Article 7 of the Russian Law on the Control of the Activities of Persons Under Foreign Influence,” according to Russian state news agency TASS.
Also this weekend, it was reported that two well-known theater actors were fired from the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater for criticizing the war in Ukraine. Dmitry Nazarov and his wife Olga Vasilyeva were fired by the theater’s artistic director, Konstantin Khabensky, who accused the actors of “anti-Russian sentiments.”
The state-run TASS news agency confirmed that the duo had been fired without giving a reason.
Angry Putin slams his officials during video conference
