On 4 June, the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, in partnership with the Master in International and Development Studies (MINT) and the Comité Ukraine Genève organized a screening of the film Intercepted, followed by a discussion with film director Oksana Karpovych.

The film Intercepted documents the Russian invasion of Ukraine through phone calls from Russian soldiers to their families, which were intercepted by Ukrainian security services. Interacting with these images, the voices of Russian soldiers reveal a spectrum from heroic illusions to disappointment and loss of reason, from looting to vicious war crimes, from propaganda to doubt and disillusionment. 

The screening was followed by a discussion between director Oksana Karpovych, Nataliya Tchermalykh, Senior Lecturer at the University of Geneva, and Till Mostowlansky, Research Professor in Anthropology and Sociology and Faculty Associate at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. 

The discussion provided an opportunity to delve into the conditions under which the documentary was made, the shooting of the images in Ukraine and the challenges encountered. Oksana Karpovych also went back over the origins of the documentary, explaining that when she was working with the media, she wanted to break away from the usual framework in which conflict is reported and recounted. Listening in on these intercepted telephone conversations, made public by the Ukrainian security services, inspired her to report on the conflict in a different way: her film seeks to provide an insight into the daily lives of Russian soldiers, and reveals a spectrum ranging from heroic illusions and loss of reason to looting and vicious war crimes, as well as propaganda, doubt, and disillusionment.