Why a Russian screening of an 81-year-old Soviet-era film to a tiny audience has alarmed Taiwan — SkimNews
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- Russia's de facto embassy in Taipei hosted a closed-door screening of the 1945 Soviet documentary "The Defeat of Militarist Japan"—translated on Facebook as "Smashing Militarist Japan"—for approximately 20 Taiwanese academics, former journalists, business figures, and other public-facing individuals in a small downtown Taipei meeting room.
- Taiwan's National Security Council, the island's top security body, told Reuters it was "closely monitoring" Chinese-Russian "cognitive warfare" cooperation and accused both countries of attempting to "amplify specific topics and distort historical facts and political issues."
- Taiwanese officials said Russia poses a fresh challenge because Moscow's diplomats can cultivate Taiwanese contacts under less immediate legal scrutiny than Chinese officials face under Taiwan's 2019 Anti-Infiltration Act and other security laws.
- Russia's Taipei representative Pavel Lapin told attendees the office hoped to organize similar events in the future, while deputy representative Sergey Chudodeev turned away Reuters reporters at the door, calling the event invitation-only.
- China's Taiwan Affairs Office dismissed the concerns as "another ploy to manipulate anti-China sentiment for political gain," and China's foreign ministry said it was unaware of the screening; Russia did not respond to requests for comment.
- Russia has sat on Taiwan's "unfriendly" countries list since Taipei joined Western sanctions after Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and in August China and Russia issued a joint statement warning against remilitarization in the Asia-Pacific.
- The screening lands amid a Tokyo-Beijing crisis triggered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's statement that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could draw a Japanese military response, which Beijing cited as evidence Japan is reviving its aggressive past.
Why it matters: Taiwan now faces a second state actor capable of running influence operations on the island with less legal friction than Beijing: roughly 20 academics, former journalists, and business figures attended the screening, and Russia's representative signaled more events to come. With Russia on Taiwan's "unfriendly" list since 2022 and Beijing and Moscow jointly warning against Asia-Pacific remilitarization, the film is being read as a coordinated narrative tool aimed at fracturing the Tokyo-Taipei relationship—a key informal alliance Taipei cannot afford to strain.
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