Vietnam saw the advent of the visible war, documented by TV cameras; but the Russia-Ukraine war perhaps represents the moment we also get a fully audible one. With two relatively affluent belligerents involved, mobile phone coverage is ubiquitous on both the civilian and soldier sides. Juxtaposing intercepted calls back home from frontline Russian troops with shots of the devastation they have wreaked in Ukraine, this film is a bleak and searing wiretap into Putin’s warping effect on his people and the psychology of power.
“A Russian is not a Russian if they don’t steal something,” jokes one woman when she hears her brave boy has looted some makeup for her. Set against the shots of ransacked living rooms, wrecked petrol stations and dimly lit bomb shelters, such casual banter hammers home a chilling normalisation of imperialism and aggression – which comes with varying justifications. There is the standard dehumanisation: that the “khokhols” (a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians) deserve it. Many parrot Putin’s line that the special military operation is fighting fascists. Or, in some troops’ amazement at Ukrainian ice-cream and abundant livestock, we glimpse an economic envy that lets such lies slip down more easily.
There are dissenters, too. “Putin cares about the land, not the people,” points out one grunt. What is truly chilling is how the largely female listeners on the other end of the line are often more gung-ho than the soldiers. In one horrific segment, another combatant tells his mother about Federal Security Service officers torturing individuals. He confesses to participating in and enjoying this sadism. “If I got there too, I would enjoy it like you,” says Mum. “You and I, we are the same.” With Russian civilians here regularly condoning the murder of their Ukrainian counterparts, it shows how deeply Putin has cankered the body politic.
Amid the thriving micro-industry of documentaries about this conflict, there are, as always, questions to be asked about the purpose and perspective of individual films. Since this one presumably could only have been made with the cooperation of the Ukrainian intelligence services, it’s hard not to wonder about what material was made available to director Oksana Karpovych and what has been made prominent in the edit. Even so, this eavesdropping is totally compelling, often overpowering the visuals the conversations are matched with; a dissonant stratagem that both outlines and pierces the post-truth fog of war.
• Intercepted is at Bertha DocHouse, London, from 21 February, and is available on arte.tv now.
