18 March 2026

‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is a Russian documentary which won an Oscar on Sunday night. It was filmed by Pasha Talankin in a Primary School in Karabash. It’s a poor mining town near the Rural Mountains. Pasha was employed to record and organise school events.

At the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government instructed schools to hold regular patriotic displays and provided curriculum papers written by the State to justify the invasion. These bulletins were read out to classes by the teachers.

The schools were obliged to upload footage of these displays to demonstrate compliance. This allowed Pasha to record what was going on in the school without anyone being suspicious about what he was actually doing. The filming took place over two years.

‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is about how you lose your country.’ said Pasha at the Oscar celebrations. ‘And what we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless, small, little acts of complicity.’ Small things are easily ignored. But the cumulative effect is devastating.

The resilience of the people to challenge the forces of the state and its manipulated institutions was impressive. Pasha’s bravery in filming the small things which were changing the nation by stealth was impressive. He was eventually put under police surveillance but made his escape and is now in exile in Europe.

Last week, Pete Hesgeth, US Defence Secretary, described Iran’s leadership in these terms. ‘Iran’s leadership is in no better shape, desperate and hiding. They’ve gone underground. That’s what rats do.’ ‘Rat’ is such a small word, hardly noticeable but even enemies are human beings made in the image of God – not rats!

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