RTDocumentary

'We don’t lay claim to any other state’s territories or interests. Our task is to ensure security and peace on our lands and nations.' Stanislav Zas, the Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, explains why it was necessary to create a new military-political bloc 30 years ago. The CSTO was founded after the fall of the USSR. The organisation includes six countries: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. At any moment, they are ready to protect each other in case of outside aggression. And they are fighting terrorism, extremism, and drug trafficking together. Watch our video to find out how special forces counteract modern-day threats. In our new documentary CSTO Allies: 30 Years Protecting Collective Security, you can learn more about the organisation. #premiere#history Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘Our units are not in good shape. Lots of guys want to escape – they even wound themselves to escape. The commanders say that if you retreat, you’re done.’ A Ukrainian POW described the situation in their regiment. He was captured by a Chechen unit of Russian troops commanded by Daniil Martynov. He interacts a lot with the POWs and says Ukrainian soldiers are forced to fight: ‘He was told that if he didn’t fight, they would murder his family. If he runs, they will kill him. So he must dig the trenches and keep shooting until it’s all over.’ According to the Chechen commander, every POW is valuable: ‘He [a Ukrainian POW] may not even understand some things, but we can still gather a lot of important information. We listen to his testimony and put the whole puzzle together.’ Here’s an excerpt from our premiere of Battle for Freedom: On the frontline. Watch the whole film here. #premiere Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘I volunteered to join the Donetsk defenders… because I wanted to do my part in resolving this problem... the problem of Nazism in Donetsk’. These are the words of the Mexican Ignacio Ojeda, who came to help the people of Donbass. Foreigners from different countries came to protect people from Ukrainian shelling: Serbia, Colombia, Italy, and the USA. They blame the West for the situation in Donbas. ‘Mariupol Drama Theatre... NATO, Washington, why? These are your weapons. You destroyed this community,’ says American volunteer Zak Novak. For more about those who did not leave the inhabitants in trouble, watch the new RT Documentary filmForeign Fighters of Donbass. #premiere#Donbass Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘Such cruelty! For absolutely no reason, they [Ukrainian soldiers] were shooting people in their legs, shoulders, arms! They were deliberately holding people — children, women, elderly — at their positions,’ says Adam Delimkhanov, a Russian State Duma deputy. Together with Chechen compatriots, he takes part in Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. Soldiers of Chechen units say the situation in Ukraine is familiar to Chechen people. They have gone through a war with extremists and terrorists and have vast experience dealing with them. That is why Chechens consider it their duty to help and participate in the special operation: ‘No matter how hard it is for our special forces, we’ll complete our tasks, secure areas block by block, save civilians, and eradicate the Nazis.' This video is an excerpt from our premiere of Battle for Freedom: Akhmat Special Forces about the role of Chechen soldiers in the Russian special operation. #premiere#military Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

Do you know what ‘take on the moustache’ means? And why are fishermen not afraid to fall through the ice when a nuclear-powered ship cuts it next to it? And why is there only one woman on some icebreakers? Watch our premiere Iceline. Lifeline. It is about the ‘Siberia’, Russia’s newest icebreaker. At the beginning of this year, it went straight from the shipyard to the Arctic to escort convoys. Maksim Zhitnyak serves as the first mate on the icebreaker. We talked about him in 2014 in documentary Seven Seas of Ice when he first joined the fleet. Maksim recalls that at that time, he was greatly tormented by seasickness. ‘For three weeks, I could not get used to pitching’, he said. Today he’s an experienced sailor, and his ‘Siberia’ solves the most difficult tasks in the Arctic. Which you can know from the post. #premiere#Siberia#Iceline Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘Unfortunately, some Ukrainian priests urged people to do these killings. They even blessed knives and axes in church.’ Polish priest Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski describes how the Ukrainian church blessed crimes in 1943. What the Ukrainian nationalists did in Volhynia would later be called the Volhynia Massacre. Poles were stabbed, their heads were cut off, nails were hammered into their bodies, their tongues were torn out, and they were gutted. Volhynia is a region in northwestern Ukraine. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA*) slaughtered up to 100,000 Polish peasants during the massacre. On bloody Sunday, July 11, 1943, about 100 villages were annihilated under the banner ‘Death to Poles’. Eyewitness accounts of those events are in our post. The film Volhynia: No Statute of Limitations is available on our Telegram Channel. *recognised as extremist and banned in Russia #premiere#Ukraine#Poland#Volhynia Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘It’s quiet here! In Mariupol, there’s heavy shelling’. Seven-year-old Dima talks about what he went through. The boy's parents died, hiding him from Ukrainian shelling. Finally, Russian soldiers found him and brought him to the Children's Social Centre in Khartsyzsk. ‘The kid’s very scared. He blinks a lot and squeezes his eyes’, - the centre’s teachers haven’t told Dima about his parents. He thinks he lost them. Ten days after filming, Dima was taken by his uncle. There are 17 children in the Children's Social Centre. Most of them were taken out of the war zone by volunteers. Those who risk their lives to save others are featured in our video premiere of VolunTears. #premiere#Mariupol#Ukraine Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘I walked into his room and saw… a little bag of powder lying on the floor; I took it to a lab. They said, ‘Yes, it’s meth’. No addict would ever admit, ‘Dad, it’s awful, but I’m doing drugs”. Victor found out his son was using drugs when Valentin was in the 8th grade. He died of an overdose, never cured of his addiction. More and more young people are becoming victims of drugs because of the contactless online drug shopping system on the Dark Net. You can buy drugs and pick it up on the street in two clicks. Watch our video about how the drug business works on the Dark Net and how it is being fought.You can learn more about the Deep Web in our Dark Net Dope Deals premiere. #premiere#drugs Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘The Ukrainian forces began to shell heavily… they burnt my house down. They kicked my parents out, they had a 3-storey house. They’re in their 80s.’ Mariupol residents speak of their experience while the city was occupied by Ukraine's Armed Forces. The Ukrainian army left behind destroyed houses and continued shelling buildings even as they retreated. See people's recollections and war correspondents' stories in our premiere - Battle for Mariupol. #premiere#Ukraine#Mariupol Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘When I woke up, I was undressed and had a headache. I asked him what had happened? He said he’d done what he wanted to do with me!’, confesses Emily, a 17-year-old Congolese girl. Her traumatic experience is familiar to many women in the Congo. Daily, they face abuse on the streets and at home. Harassment in the country is not recognised as something terrible. There are no shelters for victims of sexual violence in the Congo. The police don’t help. Therefore, people seek protection from sorcerers. The girls are given a supposedly magical ritual of breast reduction to look less feminine. It consists of blows to the chest with a ‘fufu’ stick and cuts with a razor blade. The women think such cruelty will save them from violence. But does this solve the problem? Watch our video. Find out what it’s like to be a girl in the Congo, caught between the threat of rape and painful rituals. Don’t miss the premiere of Congo’s Hell for Girls. #premiere#Congo Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

‘Sanctions are just a political tool. It’s a good tool for us now. We need to make more products: our cheese, furniture, and so on.’ That’s the opinion of Russian farmer John Kopiski. The man is British and moved to the Vladimir region in the 1990s to be a farmer. Two years ago, we made a film about him entitled ‘I am John Kopiski, a Russian farmer’. Now we’re back to find out how he feels about the next round of sanctions. What do other entrepreneurs think? What difficulties have they encountered? Learn about it in our video premiere, Sanctions: Opportunity in Disguise. #video#Russia#premiere Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary

#premiere#Ukraine ‘First and foremost, they appealed to schoolchildren, who are still open-minded and susceptible to all kinds of things. For them, they drew parallels between SS death squads and Soviet liberators and defenders’. Military historian Nikita Buranov talks about what children are taught in Ukraine. They are given shell casings that killed their compatriots in the Donbass as souvenirs. In Ukraine, children are taught history differently. Schoolchildren are introduced to the biography of the national hero Bandera. He is one of the founders of the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). During the Great Patriotic War, about 100,000 civilians and 15,000 Soviet soldiers were its victims. In our post - a video from Ukrainian children’s camps. Teenagers there learn the ‘real’ truth. This is a clip from the film Fast Forward to Fascism. Follow: https://t.me/rtdocumentary