“Zelenskyy quoted Chaplin’s final speech in “The Great Dictator,” which was released in 1940, in the early days of World War II: “The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.”
The 75th Cannes Film Festival kicked off Tuesday with a live satellite video address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
May. 17, 2022, 04:09 PM EDT
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears via remote during the opening ceremony of the 75th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, May 17, 2022. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video statement on May 8, the UN’s designated “Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives During the Second World War,” in which he reflected on the phrase “never again”.
Americans are used to wars against people who don’t so casually speak our language. Zelensky can respond to Russian propaganda by directly addressing the Russian people — in Russian.
Photo illustration by Vanessa Saba
By Keith Gessen
NYtime – Published March 11, 2022Updated March 13, 2022
The thing about the videos from the war in Ukraine in 2014 was that there were very few war videos. It was, at least at first, a small-arms war. Fighting, when it erupted, happened on city streets. As soon as shots were fired, whoever was making the video would put away the phone and run.
The videos that characterized the conflict were not of rifle fire but of protests: riot police beating demonstrators as people shouted, “What are you doing?”; later, young men on the same square, outfitted in motley assortments of helmets and kneepads, counterattacking; videos of people arguing; videos of people being forced, in eastern Ukraine, to get on their knees. After pro-Russian forces took over cities in the east and the Ukrainian Army finally moved to restore its authority, there were videos of pro-Russian protesters trying to prevent tanks from entering their towns. These were the images of a country falling apart.