Freeland blasts Canadian funds going to ‘Russians at War’ doc: ‘Not right’

Liberal MPs, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, are criticizing the use of public funds for a controversial documentary depicting Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine that has been called “Russian propaganda.”

The film, Russians at War, is having its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday. It was helmed by a Russian Canadian director and was funded by Canadian public broadcasters — in part through government grants — and an Oscar-nominated Canadian producer.

A protest organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress was held outside Tuesday afternoon’s screening at the Scotiabank Theatre after festival organizers declined calls to pull the film from its lineup. Ukraine’s consul general in Toronto and the country’s foreign ministry have also spoken out against the film.

Freeland, a Ukrainian Canadian and a staunch critic of Russia’s invasion, took a moment to comment on the film after taking questions from reporters outside the Liberal caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C., Tuesday morning.

“Ukrainian diplomats and the Ukrainian Canadian community have expressed really grave concerns about that film, and I do want to say I share those concerns,” she said.

“It’s not right for Canadian public money to be supporting the screening and production of a film like this.”

The film’s director, Anastasia Trofimova, spent seven months embedded with a Russian army battalion in eastern Ukrainian territory occupied by Moscow’s forces to make the film, which she says was done without the Russian government’s knowledge. She and her financial backers have said the film shows the soldiers losing faith in the fight and seeks to humanize the ordinary men caught up in Russia’s invasion.

Freeland appeared