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Alexander Rodnyansky on the War in Ukraine, Why He Fled Russia, and What's Next for AR Content

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Forced to leave Russia due to his opposition to the Ukraine war, the Kyiv-born, two-time Oscar-nominated producer speaks about future plans.
On March 15, less than three weeks removed from his country’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu drafted a letter to the Minister of Culture demanding the film and TV work of Ukrainian actor-turned-wartime-President Volodymyr Zelensky be “removed from the cultural agenda of the Russian Federation,” citing efforts to rally the public behind President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression. Also mentioned in his complaint: two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky (“Leviathan,” “Loveless”), the Kyiv-born producer who has called Russia home for two decades. Rodnyansky had already fled the country. On March 1, he was tipped off by a friend that his opposition to the Ukraine war had landed him in the government’s crosshairs. Rodnyansky and his wife left the same day. “I cut off my business ties with Russia,” the producer told Variety. “I left behind everything. The company, the house, everything. Everything that I had.”
For the past two months, Rodnyansky has been traveling between Europe and L.A., where his production shingle AR Content is based. While managing personal and professional commitments suddenly thrown into flux, the producer has also been advising President Zelensky and assisting in efforts to broker an end to the war. Rodnyansky has known the president since the former’s days at the head of the Ukrainian TV + 1, which frequently worked with the former actor and comedian. Despite nearly three decades of living and working in Russia, where he has become one of the country’s most successful and acclaimed producers, Rodnyansky insists there was no question of divided loyalty once the Russian army began its invasion. “I was always a Ukrainian citizen living there. I never had Russian citizenship. I never wanted it,” he said. “I had my emotional attachment to Ukraine, always. So when [the invasion] happened, I never had a second to doubt.”
More than 15,000 Russians were arrested at anti-war protests early in the war, as the Kremlin swiftly cracked down on dissent against what it referred to as a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Though he safely fled the country, many of Rodnyansky’s friends and associates were detained and questioned over offenses as trivial as a social media post opposing the war.

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