Mar 6, 2022

Russian animators have created anti-war shorts to protest Putin's attack on Ukraine

Russian animators have come out hard against their country's decision to invade Ukraine.

First, hundreds of Russian animation artists, young and old alike, joined with Ukrainian artists to release a collective statement, both online and in the Russian media, protesting the war.

Now, over 100 Russian animators have banded together to create a series of anti-war anijams. All of the shorts released to date are included in this post and more films are forthcoming.

This is the full statement from the Russian animators who are involved in the project:

The artists involved in the project are remaining anonymous because dissent in Russia is closely monitored and police in Russia have arrested thousands of anti-war protestors in the past week. However, one of the animators involved in the project has come out publicly and given an interview to the Austrian publication Moment. Though she has chosen to make her name public, out of an abundance of caution for her personal safety, Cartoon Brew will not be reprinting it on this site.

The interview, however, can be read here and it's worth doing an auto-translate of it to English to get a first-hand perspective of life in Russia for artists at the moment. Here are a few excerpts:

To keep up to date with the project, follow Animators Against War on Instagram.