Film about First Chechen War on YouTube scores over 2 million viewings in three days

In the film "The Man After the War" produced by video blogger Yuri Dud, Oleg Sitnikov, who fought in the First Chechen War, campaign, and Yuri Shevchuk, the leader of the DDT group, who came to Grozny in 1995, talk about the war and the life after it. The video helped Sitnikov to embody his dream of buying a new car.

In the interview, Yuri Shevchuk showed the archival footage he had filmed. In one of the episodes, we can see a call-over of fighters who came from different regions. Yuri said that in a few days many of them perished.

"We know that at least one hero of this video is alive; we found him by accident, thanks to one of our viewers. His name is Oleg Sitnikov, he lives in Kaliningrad a very modest life," Yuri Dud wrote in his preview to the film.

According to Sitnikov, when he, an untrained soldier, was sent to Mozdok, he had a vague idea about the war. There, he "served in the reserve battalion and was busy collecting dead bodies." After his return from Chechnya, he "drank all the time" and "lived where he could." The 49-year-old Sitnikov said that he "could quit drinking 10 years ago."

"Two big differences – the Great Patriotic War (WW II) and the Chechen War; there, people fought for their homeland, whereas in Chechnya we didn't know what we were fighting for," the Chechen War veteran said, adding that "there were those who went crazy."

The film is interesting and emotional, YouTube users report. Others believe that it is incomplete and one-sided, as there are no comments of the Chechens who went through the war.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.