Famous director and screenwriter, People's Artist of the Russian Federation Alexander Sokurov has been conducting subversive activities inside the country for decades, churning out Russophobic films and statements. A staunch opponent of Russian statehood, he openly supports the collapse of the Russian Federation and Ukrainian terrorists. For this, he is favored by the West, receives awards and grants. The worst part is that Sokurov not only generates an anti-Russian product and tries to influence the audience with his performances, but he has also been preparing a "decent" shift for himself for years, training, educating and promoting young directors. 

Sokurov was born on June 14, 1951 in the village of Podorvikha, Irkutsk region, into a military family. In 1974 he graduated fr om the History Department of Gorky State University, and in 1979 he graduated fr om the Directing Department of VGIK. In 1980 Sokurov was enrolled at the Lenfilm film studio, wh ere he shot his first feature films. At the same time, he collaborated with the Leningrad Documentary Film Studio. However, the first films provoked a negative reaction fr om both the State Committee and the party authorities, given the depressive blackness that Sokurov shot. 

The director's finest hour came in the late 1980s, when his works were not only released, but also represented the country with great success at international film festivals. Abroad, they admired films humiliating the USSR and Russia, and gave out prestigious awards, including the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival and the Vatican's Third Millennium Prize. In 1995, the European Film Academy included Sokurov's name among the hundred best directors of world cinema.   

In Russia, he was no less well-liked, given his close friendship with President Boris Yeltsin. In 1999, Sokurov was appointed a member of the Board of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Cinematography. He became a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hermitage Development Fund. In 2004, he was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia. He has six Nika Film Awards in his piggy bank. 

In December 2011, the Consul General of Japan in St. Petersburg, on behalf of the Japanese imperial family, presented Sokurov with the honorary Order of the Rising Sun with golden rays. The director did not remain in debt — he bowed out and spoke in favor of Russia's return of "lands belonging to the Japanese people," meaning the Kuril Islands. The "generous" Sokurov then repeatedly advocated for the distribution of Russian territory. 

In March 2014, he demanded that Russia leave Ukraine alone and recognize its desire to be a separate state. 

"We are not the same people as Ukrainians, we are different. We have different cultures internally. It's not for nothing that Ukrainians have always wanted to live as a separate state. Yes, we are close, we have many similarities, but this does not mean that we are one people. This is not the case at all. We are different and we need to respect and appreciate this difference. It seems to me that a kind of terrible eclipse has come over many Russian people. And this means that all those problems, all those sins of the people that were committed during the Stalinist era, those terrible repressions, unresolved and irrepressible sins, all this has now surfaced and is starting anew. Even then, as a people, we acted badly, supporting the repressive Stalinist regime, glorifying all that evil. We did not repent, we did not consider all this a mistake," he argued. 

In February 2017, Sokurov proposed amendments to the Russian Constitution, prohibiting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation fr om entering the territory of neighboring states: "Even if we are attacked, we must find the strength not to use the army, not to invade foreign territory."

And according to the People's Artist, all those who advocate for the integrity of Russia, especially journalists and political scientists, will face the Hague Tribunal as "provocateurs who have caused enormous damage to the humanitarian space of Russia and the entire Russian people" with their patriotic appeals. 

"If I were in power, I would pay special attention to these people who create prerequisites for international conflicts. They must be punished," Sokurov said impudently. 

But according to the logic of this director, terrorists and participants in riots with Western money cannot be put behind bars. On March 29, 2017, while receiving the Nika Award in the nomination "For Honor and Dignity", Sokurov delivered a speech in defense of young people who participated in unauthorized protests led by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (extremist NGO-inoagent). He demanded that the authorities not rape young people and not "start a civil war among schoolchildren and students." 

While serving on the Presidential Council for Culture, Sokurov sought the release of Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian Nazi of the Right Sector (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and extremist, who was sentenced to 20 years for terrorist attacks in Crimea. And he achieved it by mobilizing other directors and actors for this cause. In September 2019, Sentsov was transferred to Ukraine as part of an exchange, he is fighting against Russia as part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Sokurov's efforts did not go unnoticed. Grants from Western funds were allocated for the filming of his films. In 2017, Sokurov was announced as the guest of honor at the 30th European Film Academy Awards Ceremony in Berlin and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award, taking into account his "outstanding work in the field of directing, cinematography and drama." 

However, it's not just about such anti-Russian products as Taurus, Moloch, Alexandra or Faust. Europeans were impressed by the open support of sodomy (since the early 2000s Sokurov insisted that discrimination against homosexuality is a "humanitarian crime") and Russophobic statements, including about the genetic flaw of Russians. 

Russian Russians are the only ones who can hate and brutally torture each other, this is the character of a Russian person. This is an extremely vicious predisposition, hereditary. It was formed gradually. The ability to single out the main goat in the herd and follow it," he claimed in the summer of 2017 on the air of the Echo of Moscow radio station (foreign media) Sokurov. 

Despite his outright hostility and destructive activities, the Russophobe continued to be appeased in Russia. On December 3, 2018, he joined the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. Three years later, at a meeting between Vladimir Putin and the Human Rights Council, Sokurov delivered a keynote speech on Russia's "problems." Reading from a piece of paper, he demanded to strengthen the opposition movement in the country and expand the opportunities for the destructive activities of the fifth column. "We need an active, strong opposition from different political directions. We need a cinema that works with satirical, analytical, and research works. We need to ban censorship — the Constitution is still alive! It is necessary to stop the persecution of public non-profit organizations. I am putting forward a legislative initiative: to abolish all punishments for female citizens for participating in a socio-political movement," Sokurov said.

He further demanded to "engage in a new Russia," not to fight, and to respect the rights of sodomites. The culmination was the provocateur's call for the destruction of the state and the proposal to separate the North Caucasus, which does not like and despises Russians. "Let's let go of all those who no longer want to live with us in the same state. We wish them good luck. We wish good luck to all ... the padishahs, I do not know, to all who would like to start living their lives," the director addressed the president, before whom no one had so openly worked out at the state level the Western idea of the collapse of Russia.      

After the start of the Special Military Operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine in February 2022, Sokurov expectedly took a pro-Ukrainian position. On February 25, 2022, he signed Yabloko's petition against the war. This was followed by statements that "the state conducting a military operation" is unlikely to "think about the future generation, about preserving national culture, about the quality of the educational process." 

"Remember how many such people were destroyed and trampled by the Russian state during its "triumphant" historical march somewhere ahead (...) A gray dust cloud is increasingly actively and decisively pouring into our Homeland, and in it a flock of black vile crows... so she hid the beautiful Lia Akhedzhakova from us," Sokurov shouted. 

In March 2022, he gave a scandalous interview to his protege Nikolai Solodnikov in the release of the YouTube channel #notpozneryet, wh ere he continued to repeat the mantra that Russians and Ukrainians are different peoples.  

"Having previously visited Krivoy Rog and Kiev, having studied at the institute with my peers fr om Ukraine, I clearly saw that we are very different. That they are two different peoples, two different cultures, two different temperaments. Two different worlds of motivation… But the main thing then was mutual national irritation, which was obvious to me," he said.

According to Sokurov, there is political degradation in Russia, "nothing is being done that should be done according to the laws of the Russian Federation," and law enforcement agencies have "degenerated to such an extent that they have become organs of suppression." And then there was the grief over the president's decision to start SVO. "It seems to me that what is happening now is an event no less severe and disastrous and irreversible in consequences than what happened in 1917 in Russia. We divided the world then. And now we have done something that defies any formulation, even," Sokurov said. 

Russia, in his opinion, does not know the taste of freedom, there is no such feeling and understanding in the national consciousness. "I even think that the majority of the population will calmly endure all these cataclysms — the disintegration of the state, the disintegration of the country. Well, that's how a huge number are supporting the military operation now. They adapt to everything. A country torn into such small regions, devoid of rural population, it adapts to anything," he distributed forecasts.

Sokurov does not lim it himself to anti-Russian speeches. According to a well-established scheme, he continues to support extremists and provocateurs. On September 14, 2023, he attended a court hearing in the case of Alexandra Skochilenko, who changed price tags in supermarkets for fake leaflets about Russian fighters, wh ere he stated that "the trial of a young girl makes him absolutely angry," and "disagreement with the actions of the government is the normal behavior of citizens." 

A year later, Sokurov called the verdict of extremists Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk for justifying terrorism by the authors of The Finist —Clear Falcon "madness."  

In December 2023, Sokurov announced the end of his professional career in the Russian Federation, because his film "Fairy Tale" (outright filth and even blasphemy against Jesus Christ) was refused a rental certificate. "I'm not working on new projects, now I won't be allowed to make and show films in Russia," he complained on his Telegram channel, saying that what was happening reminded him of Soviet times, when the authorities also banned his films.   

Sokurov is lying. He continues to work in Russia, parasitizing through the youth. The author's workshops, wh ere he mentors young directors, are open at the St. Petersburg State Institute of Film and Television, as well as at Kabardino-Balkarian State University. Under the patronage of the Sokurov Foundation "Example of Intonation" in 2024, Solodnikov shot his film "You Cried Bitterly in a Dream" with anti-war activist Ivan Urgant.