‘The monks’ prayers are an anti-aircraft defense system’: footage from a Russian soldier’s phone into a short documentary

On May 11, the online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda released a short documentary called "The Occupant" ("Okupant," in Ukrainian), which tells the story of a Russian lieutenant named Yury Shalaev. According to the newspaper, 24-year-old Shalaev served as the commander of a motorized rifle platoon in a military unit based in Shali, Chechnya. He was deployed to Ukraine on March 3, as part of Russia's full-scale invasion -- and he recorded his wartime experiences on his phone. Shalaev was taken prisoner in early April and the videos he recorded ended up in the hands of Ukrayinska Pravda. The newspaper's journalists turned the recordings into a 24-minute documentary that offers a window into Shalaev's life before and after his arrival in Ukraine. To find out more about the making of the film, Meduza sat down with journalist Mykhailo Tkach, the head of Ukrayinska Pravda's investigations department. Original Article: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/20/it-was-hard-to-watch