“‘Mariupol: Three Years of Freedom’ — Russia’s Goebbels-Grade Fantasy Shot on the Ashes of a War Crime.”
Analysis
Not a documentary—a propaganda snuff film dressed in hi-def polish, a cinematic desecration of truth recasting genocide as liberation. The film is not just disinfo—it is a psych warfare designed to gaslight, glorify, & legitimize warcrimes.
A War Crime in 4K
Claim
“This is the story of heroes filmed during the fighting in 2022...”
Reality
The “heroes” are Russian combatants, recast as valiant saviors.Russia sieged Mariupol, killed over 25k civilians, bombed hospitals, theaters, and evac routes. Now, they film a pseudo-heroic documentary in the ruins of the city they incinerated.
Cognitive Warfare Goal
Reprogram historical memory. Turn a genocidal siege into a nationalist epic.
“Three Years of Freedom” – Orwellian Titlecraft
Disinfo Device
Inversion narrative.
The title is a lie so bold it qualifies as Orwellian performance art. “Freedom,” in this case, means occupation, repression, filtration camps, ethnic cleansing, and passportization. Russia carpet-bombed the city, declared it “liberated,” and now films in its graveyard as if they freed it from itself.
Influence Ops Objective
Cement the illusion of benevolent Russian governance. Rewriting history for domestic and sympathetic foreign audiences.
Platform Warfare RuTube and Telegram Integration
Op Insight
A multi-platform state influence operation. RuTube serves as a sanitized Kremlin echo chamber. Telegram a conduit for raw psyop material—doctored footage, glorification of war crimes, dehumanizing language about Ukrainians.
Truth
If Joseph Goebbels had a 4K drone and the Internet, this is the type of audiovisual hallucination he would produce.
Strategic Function
Obishchenko is a narrative agent, shaping trauma into mythology for Kremlin use. He is the cinematographer of conquest, the auteur of amnesia.
Psyops thru Emotional Recasting
Technique
Pathos hijacking.
The film shows families reuniting, rebuilding, or finding "peace" in occupied Mariupol—without ever showing the cause of their suffering: Russian itself. It’s emotional abuse as narrative: the abuser filming the survivor’s recovery and claiming it as evidence of love.
Psyop Target
International fence-sitters, Western far-right influencers, and disaffected youth—those susceptible to emotional manipulation and “alternative truths.”
6. Targeting Narrative Fatigue in the West
The film is timed for a global audience increasingly fatigued by war. It whispers, “Look, life goes on. It wasn’t so bad. Maybe Russia did save them.” It’s designed to soften Western outrage, degrade public support for Ukraine, and nudge policymakers toward “peace” on Russian terms.
The movie is cinematic necrophilia—a glossy, nationalist fantasy made atop the corpses of thousands. It is a state-sponsored gaslight, a narrative warhead, and a desecration of memory that seeks to bury the truth.
This is not a film.
This is a weapon.