Adrian P 🇷🇴🇺🇦🇪🇺

If you want to get to know my dearest Helena, she made an appearance in this Australian TV Report

In June, Helena Maksyom's film Don't Ask Me If I Killed has its world premiere at DocuDays UA in Kyiv. Helenagave this interview to the festival. Here is the English translation. --- The first frames we see were shot on the eve of the full-scale invasion. When did you start filming this film and why? Did you plan from the start, or did you sense that this material could/should become a film? Before the full-scale invasion, I was making a film about institutional facilities in Ukraine — places where very young and elderly people with disabilities live under one roof, united by their shared dependence on the system. My main character was Ira — a girl in a wheelchair from Nova Kakhovka, an orphan who wrote poetry. After the occupation, she was taken to Russia. I couldn't help her. Then I joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine — and we lost contact. I don't know where she is now, or whether she's alive. I remember clearly that long before February 24, 2022, I felt that the Russian army would try to occupy Ukraine. That feeling wouldn't let go, it made it very hard to plan anything. I tried to talk about it with colleagues from Europe, with friends in Ukraine, but the words seemed to find no footing. Many people said I was exaggerating and that it couldn't happen. Yet at that point, I think many people felt it too, but pushed the thought away, didn't want to believe it, to accept it. No, I didn't plan and didn't feel that the footage shot before the full-scale invasion should become a film. Those frames are from my personal diary, as are some others you see in the film — I film myself, trying to briefly capture my state and what's happening around me. When did you decide to join the armed forces? In the film you document the experience of transformation of people from civilians into soldiers, including your own. How does filming affect the living and perception of that experience? What does the camera allow you to see — in others and in yourself? By what principle did you decide to turn the camera on and film the events around you? When did you feel it was the right moment to document something? At the beginning of the full-scale invasion I joined a group of volunteers engaged in evacuating civilians from dangerous territories. I had a camera and sometimes simply recorded what was happening, not thinking it could ever become a film. Much was left off camera. Like how my driver Serhiy — who is now also in the Armed Forces — and I stumbled upon a Russian checkpoint in Chernihiv region and barely escaped. Like how a woman from Bucha told me she had been raped by Russian soldiers and didn't know how to go on living with that, or whether to tell her husband. And then there was Kramatorsk. On April 8, 2022, we arrived at the station after a Tochka-U missile killed 61 people and wounded more than 120. That day became the turning point after which I decided to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I completed training, celebrated my birthday on May 8 already as a servicewoman — a combat medic and rifleman — and on May 10 we set off for Luhansk region. I was the only woman in the battalion. The situation was critically difficult: we were significantly outnumbered by the enemy and had almost no resources. At the positions, a camera wasn't just inappropriate — it was superfluous. And the desire to film almost disappeared. But there were many losses. And in the moments when it was possible, I began to document — the guys at the command observation post, before going out, fragments of reality that could be caught. Sometimes I filmed myself — thinking that if something happened to me, the camera would remain, and perhaps someone could use the footage. The camera calmed me a little. I was filming us alive. How did your fellow soldiers and command respond to the idea of filming? Was it difficult to clear the footage with your unit's press service? How much can you show audiences when the war is still ongoing? The idea of making a film first came after the death of my close friend and fellow soldier — twenty-year-old Artem. I very much wanted people to remember him. The comrades who had by that time become like family received the idea normally. But in that period there was almost no time for just filming — in war there is constant work and no days off. I didn't film secret operations. I didn't take a camera to combat positions. I filmed only when it was possible and didn't interfere with service. The commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, at that time Lieutenant General Yuriy Lebid, also responded normally to periodic filming on the condition that it didn't interfere with combat and service tasks. So the press service had no objections either. It's hard for me to answer what exactly can be shown to audiences. Sometimes it irritates me when journalists talk about things that should remain secret — tactics, new developments. The enemy monitors this, we do the same. There are things that are very hard to talk about. Very terrible things. And I don't know when the moment will come to reveal them. Please tell us about the film's title. On my first military days off, after we came out of Bakhmut, I came to Kyiv and visited my friend — now producer Zhanna. A friend of ours was staying with her then, a Lithuanian director. We were drinking coffee on the balcony, smoking, and I found it hard to return to small talk, to try to behave normally. And suddenly he asked: "Did you kill?" I looked at him in silence for a long time. Then he, unable to bear my gaze, simply embraced me. For a long time the working title of the film was "A Soldier's Journey." I was fine with that — after short editing sessions I would return to the front, and it felt honest: the journey was still ongoing. But the producers began to doubt whether that title was truly accurate. And then I remembered that story. That's how the new title came about — Don't Ask Me If I Killed. Full interview originally published by DocuDays UA. docudays.ua

Today, our friend Artem Sendetsky would have turned 24. He fought hard in Zolote and Kharkiv but he was a kind soul with hopes, dreams and big plans after the war. He will always be 20 and I will never forgive the Russian savages who took his life too soon.

@antiallzio109 @mhdksafa Most published by the Hamas health ministery. I am not saying they are not accurate but c"on. It's the Hamas health ministery

@AdrianP_doc @mhdksafa Ddude these are facts. There are names for every sinngle one of these thouthands of children killed in palestnian and hundreds in lebonan

Child deaths in wars: Ukraine: +791 in 4 years. Palestine: +21,000 in 2.7 year. Lebanon: +200 in 74 days. Does the world condemn the killing of children or is it complicated when it is Middle Eastern children?

Lukasheko is not stupid. He is a blowhard and sings Putin's tune but he knows his military does not stand a chance against Ukraine. He's been saying he'll get involved since 2022 to divert Ulrainian units from other fronts. He won't order his army to invade Ukraine because his regime would be over within weeks if he did.

Bitch boy pedo

Whenever Israel blows up a UN vehicle in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon, the UN and the western left are quick to condemn it (rightfully). When the Russians do ir in Ukraine - fucking crickets

Evere day America looks more weak and stupid... And there's at least 2 and a half years left of this shit.

@HavryshkoMarta Russian whores are so cheap these days

Once again, for those who endlessly ask why I am not in Ukraine: because for my criticism of the Ukrainian state’s institutional support for neo-Nazis, I could end up either imprisoned or dead there. I constantly receive death and rape threats from neo-Nazi groups controlled by the SBU and HUR. I can only hope they will not dare to kill me on American soil. I do not share the same optimism about the EU. Period. More on my case👇

@cosminchera Eu ii dau o sansa E cam slow dar daca chiar vrem o alternativa la X , tine si de noi s-o sustinem? Eu o sa incerc sa fiu activ acolo @ adrianpirvu

Mai e cineva pe eYou?

@nightwatcherT Good in principle but in practice when you when "shopping" you really had a lot of time to socialize while queuing for milk or substandard meat ... if any was left on the shelves

@AdrianP_doc the comuists flats planning was built entirely around socializing and meeting other people while u were doing shopping or other chores

Communism in Romania sucked ass. The flats were cramped and it would be a miracle if you had hot water for more than 6 hours a week. But when it came to neighborhood planning, the commies did better than these pirates. Writing this from my home office in a worker's neighborhood built in the late 70s looking at blooming trees out of my window and the next block is far enough from mine that I don't have to see the neighbor from across the street scratch his ass.

@land_apostle I'm genuinely trying to be calmer in my language here for my own mental health. But the demented pedophile has really gone beyond all possible bad adjectives and 7 deadly sins. The fact that he is still leader of the US is a mark of shame on all of them.

Most of China's (admittedly remarkable) technological progress is built on copying, poaching or outright stealing of western technology, especially Americas. Beyond his multitude of bad qualities, the current American president is also chronically stupid.

@andriyhaydash Got the sarcasm. But even if he gave it away for free, at the state American leadership is now, the dumb hogs wouldn't know what to do with it anyway

Stupid Zelensky gave away $500 trillion worth of knowledge for free If someone else was the president this wouldn’t have happened

Given that a former French president and a former Geeman chancellor are literally on the payroll of Kremlin connected companies, ammong multiple other cases of corruption and collaboration with our enemies from leaders and companies from all over the union, the EU has no leg to stand on in lecturing Ukraine about corruption.

@BillyGstring I think there are tierw. Those who can afford it buy into developments that have green and livable common spaces. But there is a market for the less afluent who are desperate to buy a flat anywhere just because they own it. Yes, your area of the country iw nicer

@AdrianP_doc To be fair, this seems to be more of an issue in the south and/or the capital. Some of the new developments I've seen in my neck of the woods (Arad/Timișoara) look decent/green/liveable.

@Newsforce @georgesimion @trussliz The Russian backed former football hooligan talking to the disgraced and universally hated former prime minister who lasted barely 5 minutes in office. Yeah, I'm sure these great minds know what the fuck they are talking about.

🚨 ROMANIA'S OPPOSITION LEADER: THE WEST IS REPEATING SOVIET-STYLE CONTROL @georgesimion just told @trussliz on In The Room that Romania’s dream of joining the free world has turned into a warning about basic freedoms: “And what my parents and grandparents experienced in the Soviet communist dictatorship, it's repeating now in the West.” Source: In The Room

@two_twenty_four Yeah, definitely. Ultimately, the idiots who buy flats in these modern ghettos are to blame for making the choice.

@AdrianP_doc Just an aside: there are enough of these scalpers' neighborhoods where you can literally change TV channels across your block with your remote. But at least we have TVs, remotes and need no Party approval for one - a thing idiots praising Commies don't know and can't imagine.