While the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was recently marked, Oleg's Choice offers a revisit to the war years earlier, in 2016, in the Donbass, in the east of the country. The intimate perspective of the camera provides an insight into a unit of Russian volunteer soldiers, where the everyday monotony only makes the brutality of the war more vivid. Over the battalion, composed of a handful of barely adult young men, hangs the shadow of a tragedy: the death of part of the group, killed in combat.

In the face of this loss, the young soldiers question themselves. Why did they go to fight? Immersed in the limbo of war, they reassess the ideals of justice that motivated them when they enlisted. The glaring lack of organization and equipment, combined with the pain of having to return the emaciated remains of their sons, who left too soon, to the grieving parents, underscores the growing malaise and the nagging feeling of being part of a fratricidal war.

While the current negotiations between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart resemble a mere commercial transaction between two powers, Oleg's Choice sheds light once again on the ideological paradox long upheld by Russian propaganda, where the heroic narrative of Ukraine’s “liberation” clashes with the brutal reality of combat. Moving beyond the mere strategic dimension of the war, the documentary delves into the tension of an incoherent belief system and how it manifests through the broken bodies and weary minds of a lost youth.

Fanny Tran
Researcher in residence
Center on Multidimensional Conflicts
Chaire Raoul-Dandurand

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