Review not appearing

My review of Ukraine on Fire is not appearing among the other reviews even after a week of waiting. Please, I don't want to be told in a generic way that it doesn't abide by IMDb's policy, I want to know what's the exact issue. Here is it in full extent:

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# Narrative driven, dishonest and misleading

After reading some reviews here I see people are split on this movie, either loving or hating it, and especially people loving it seem to be motivated by their political opinions. This black and white divide didn't satisfy me, so I watched it to make my own opinion.

Again, without getting into political opinions, this so called documentary is objectively bad. I see two major problems with it: It doesn't try to be objective at all, favoring only the pro-Yanukovich pro-Russian side, while picturing USA, EU and Ukrainian opposition as universally bad actors. Secondly, to achieve the former, it leaves out important facts, sometimes oversimplifies important events, at other times exaggerates not so important elements and even presents pretty far-fetched assumptions as established facts, all to support film's narrative. To call this film misleading is and understatement.

Among the most blatant misinterpretations:

Most individuals from the panel of "experts" are as pro-Russian and anti Euromaidan as it gets, literally. You get Yanukovich, symbol of corruption (the fraudulent 2004 elections anyone?) and one hand with Putin's regime. Then there is Vitaliy Zakharchenko, member of Yanukovich's corrupt government, guy who signed a decree allowing police to use live ammunition against protesters. And then there is Putin himself, of course. There is no single person "from the other side of the aisle". Most are corrupt, kleptocratic, anti-democratic politicians, who are very much complicit in or directly caused the atrocious events in Ukraine's recent history and of course you can't expect objective description of the events in question. Just from the choice of this panel, I think it's apparent that Oliver Stone wasn't trying to create an accurate documentary at all, but rather advance a particular narrative.

Euromaidan protests are presented as prepared in advance professionally, financed and led by EU and USA, with neo-nazis making up the core of protesters, making the revolution and new government neo-nazi as well. The film even advances a claim that CIA financed the snipers at Maidan to create even greater chaos. This is just crazy hearsay or outright anti-maidan propaganda, not supported by any facts. Very small part is true - yes, there were and are NGOs that also do train activists to organize protests and gain traction. But they were not the reason why the protests received such a huge support. The reason was that people were fed up with their corrupt government, and not signing the association agreement was the last straw. NGOs, running concerts and other "creative" (as the film calls them) activities don't make the protests last for months, populace's dissatisfaction with the direction their homeland is heading and sense of unity does. Usually simple explanations tend to be right. Also, neo-nazis definitely played an important role in the protests, as they exerted the most organized resistance. But absolute majority of the people didn't support their agenda, as the elections held after the protests in 2014 have shown, with both Right block and Freedom not even making it into the Parliament. I guess they forgot to mention that? Or they didn't, as the film goes to great lengths to connect revolutions against corrupt governments with Ukraine's alleged neo-nazi history.

Mentioning all the nazi atrocities during WW2, but forgetting Holodomor in 1930s is very selective history. But I guess Putin wouldn't want to appear in the movie otherwise.

Presenting 2004 protests as caused by people "who had different opinion on the election results" is a huge understatement and imprecise. It has been proven, that Yanukovich's Party of Regions manipulated the election results in order to fraudulently win. Protesting election fraud is not a matter of different opinion.

Yanukovich speculates about true purpose of the protests, since his concessions towards the opposition didn't seem to appease protesters. But it's apparent, that the protesters wanted him out of office, because of course they did. So no wonder his concessions were not enough.

Yanukovich and Zakharchenko completely gloss over why they left Kyiv. The true reason is that they were directly responsible for the high number of casualties during protests, particularly one day before they left - Feb 20th 2014. Following that bloodshed, parliament condemned the use of violence and with police and army changing sides or turning neutral, the government's hold on power disintegrated. In turn they would have been held accountable, so they rather fled to Russia. So much for Yanukovich complaining about unconstitutionality.

No mention of titushky, who had major role in escalating protests.

The claims about Crimea's referendum on annexation to Russia is full of left out facts and lies. First of all, election result of 96,7% is very suspicious in any circumstance. More so, since a poll run by Gallup on the same topic in May 2013 showed only 23% of Crimean populace supports this. And another poll ran just 1 month prior to annexation (so during protests) showed only 41% support Ukraine being part of Russia. Then the movie says on Feb 27th protesters started to occupy government buildings, but doesn't mention Russian soldiers doing the same. What referendum results can one expect with soldiers of the very nation you are voting on to join, having control over the whole region? And the Crimean people definitely didn't start the referendum, that's laughable the same way as is the notion that People's Republic of China is run by common Chinese people. Moreover I am not even sure what Yanukovich's and Putin's argument of saying that Russian soldiers were of course present on the peninsula lawfully is heading. Technically yes, but they were supposed to be located at the naval base at Sevastopol, not to spread into the whole peninsula, occupy government buildings, airports and set up checkpoints on the isthmus between Crimea and Ukrainian mainland. Lastly, the reason the Crimean government started with the annexation was pragmatic for the then current establishment, since they had a lot to lose with Yanukovich gone, both financially and politically. Claiming they represented their people in refusing neo-nazi government in Kyiv was just a simplistic pretext.

I could go on and on. This is not a document. This is a blatant Russian propaganda. I can't imagine Oliver Stone had in mind to be used like this. My bet is that his disillusion with the US government and the Western politics in general together with his want for (relatively) simple answers and bombastic revelations is to blame.

And I can't give more than 1 star to a film that spreads purposeful misinterpretations under disguise of a serious documentary. I don't say avoid it, but if you do watch it, fact check along the way. And hey, it can be a good experience in the end, since this is a great way to not only learn about Ukraine's history, but also to recognize propaganda and respond to it accordingly.