A still shot from movie Cherkasy depicting the Ukrainian warship crew in occupied Crimea.

The long-awaited war drama Cherkasy, the first feature film about the Ukrainian navy, has hit screens nationwide.

Following a wave of movies about the Ukrainian army and paramilitaries in Donbas — such as Cyborgs, Ilovaisk, and Deadly Kittens — the most recent release tells the dramatic story of Ukrainian sailors cornered in their port during the Russian invasion of Crimea.

It attempts to draw a broad picture of the March 2014 annexation of the peninsula from the perspective of just one vessel trapped in the swirl of events, “the last Ukrainian warship in Crimea.”

The movie tries to answer bitter questions hovering over those events. How could Russia invade so easily and bring Ukrainian forces in the peninsula to the verge of collapse with no fighting? Why did so many Ukrainian military service members in Crimea — up to 70 percent, according to various estimates — eagerly defect to the Russian ranks? What was on the mind of those few who decided to stay loyal to their flag until the very bitter end?

In general, the movie pulls its weight — and does its best to avoid slipping into posh Soviet-style patriotic propaganda and absolute depictions of good and evil. And despite its numerous flaws, it deserves to be judged as a solid film worth watching.

A still shot from war movie Cherkasy showing the Ukrainian warship in Crimea during a Russian assault. (Courtesy)

Based on true events

Directed by first-timer Tymur Yashchenko, Cherkasy had a complicated history in production hell.

The movie’s Hr 40 million ($1.6 million) budget was covered by Ukraine’s State Film Agency and the Naval Forces. Principal photography was done as far back as in 2017, but the crew was forced to delay the premiere and fundraise more Hr 350,000 ($14,000) to complete post-production.

It eventually premiered on Feb. 27, 2020, marking the sixth anniversary of the Crimean invasion.

The movie focuses on a fictionalized version of the real story behind U311 Cherkasy, a 735-ton Ukrainian navy minesweeping warship that gained fame for its stubborn resistance to the Russian blockade in Crimea in March 2014.

Cherkasy “stars” a real Ukrainian navy ship — the tug vessel Korets, currently based in the port of Mariupol.

During the invasion, the Cherkasy, along with 13 other Ukrainian warships, found itself barricaded by Russian forces in the bay of Donuzlav in the peninsula’s northwest.

The Russian navy sank some of its own decommissioned ships to close the harbor’s narrow channel into the open sea and prevent Ukrainian vessels from leaving.

On March 21, Russian forces issued an ultimatum urging Ukrainian vessels to surrender. One after another, all of them were overrun by Russian special forces or defected — except the Cherkasy. But some of the ship’s crew decided to leave the deck and join the Russian fleet, too.

The Cherkasy ended up being the last warship flying Ukrainian colors in Crimea by March 24. After several failed attempts to break through to the open sea and set sail to Odesa, it was eventually captured by a Russian special forces team late on March 25.

Luckily, there were no fatalities. The crew left the ship, which was damaged in the 3-hour assault, and was allowed to return to mainland Ukraine. At home, the sailors were hailed as heroes.

To this day, the Cherkasy remains moored in the Russian-occupied port of Sevastopol.

A bit clichéd

Those who know the warship’s real story should not be worried: The movie’s plot has so many purely fictional events and characters that it effectively renders everything written above spoiler-free.

The film focuses on two simple young men, Myshko and Lev, living in a generic poor Ukrainian village in 2013. Myshko is a hard-drinking goof-off who unwillingly prepares to return to his duties as a sailor on the warship Cherkasy moored in Crimea.

Lev is a much more disciplined homesteader, and he has just lost his mother. During the funeral, a drunk Myshko urges Lev to join him and serve in the navy. Lev eventually decides to leave his farmstead behind and become a sailor, too. 

Lev is made a ship cook’s aide and plunged into the hardships of military service.

The movie does not idealize what it is like to be a newcomer in the Ukrainian navy: poor conditions of service, severe hazing, poor discipline, loads of obscene language and constant brawls among the crew.

Cherkasy tries hard to be an authentic film about the post-Soviet military. But that is also the source of its worst sin: excessive use of the most worn-out clichés that will cause any fan of war movies to roll his or her eyes.

Young sailors are beaten and scoffed at by their superiors next to their berths — a scene that strongly resembles drill sergeant Hartman hammering marine recruits in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.”

When the vessel’s commanding officer (played by Roman Semisal, a combat veteran of Donbas) inspects his poorly-disciplined crew on the deck, he says that he sees “not a company of warriors, but a bunch of monkeys,” as if the viewer hasn’t seen this scene in a trillion old movies about military bootcamps.

Sailors unhappy with living conditions on the ship rage at their lazy and incompetent cook because they are forced to consume rotten meals covered in maggots — the old event from “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) is still circulating in modern Ukrainian film.

Last men standing

Cherkasy depicts the crew’s service through 2013 and early 2014. The Ukrainian sailors participate in exercises with NATO in the Black Sea, never miss a chance to hit up a strip club and hang out a lot with their Russian colleagues based in Sevastopol.

Then, news programs on a TV set in their company cabin show the rise and victory of the EuroMaidan Revolution in Kyiv. After President Viktor Yanukovych escapes to Russia, mysterious “little green men” appear in Crimea.

Suddenly, the peninsula is being invaded and taken over by Russian special forces, and there’s nothing the weak and disoriented Ukrainian troops can do.

Every Ukrainian naval service member trapped under occupation faces a difficult choice: to bow to Russia’s military might and defect to its ranks or to stay loyal to Ukraine.

Sailors and officers on Ukrainian warships argue about this fiercely, and many service members are inclined to favor Russia.

The movie does not oversimplify the difficult, complicated situation. It gives a voice to naval officers defecting to Russia. They are sick of their miserable, low-paid service, while the Russian navy promises salaries four times higher than what they get in Ukraine. And they don’t want to take up arms against the Russian seamen, many of whom are their relatives, and against a “brotherly nation.”

But when their fellow officers ask the key question — what about the oath of allegiance they once gave to the Ukrainian flag? — the pro-Russian characters have nothing to offer but humble silence.

Part of the Cherkasy crew defects to Russia, together with most of the Ukrainian fleet. But the rest, inspired by the captain, decides to keep flying the Ukrainian flag until the bitter end.

Blocked in the Donuzlav bay, the last Ukrainian-controlled warship in Crimea starts preparing for a breakthrough to Odesa and to resist the Russian assault for as long as possible.

Characters representing Russian special operations troops urging the crew of Ukrainian warship Cherkasy to surrender. (Courtesy)

Composite characters

To the movie’s credit, it avoids the excesses one would expect from a Ukrainian patriotic war movie. It does not portray Russian special task operatives as ridiculous, grotesque orcs, but rather as powerful, professional troops acting on their own orders.

It also paints a good portrait of the Ukrainian sailors of the Cherkasy: a proud, cheerful, consolidated band ignoring the dangers they face, happy to stay loyal to their flag and remain on the right side of history.

However, the Cherkasy crew depicted in the movie is more a composite of all the Ukrainian sailors from many different vessels who left for mainland Ukraine in March 2014.

Many of the scenes are based on what happened to other Ukrainian crews. For instance, the jubilant sailors of the Cherkasy jump around the deck and sing the song “Warriors of the Light,” a popular anthem by the Belorusian band Lyapis Trubetskoy.

That actually happened — and went viral after the video was posted on YouTube in 2014. But the dancing took place on another Ukrainian warship resisting Russia in the Donuzlav Bay, the landing ship Kostyantyn Olshansky.

And the plot’s tragic ending, which is also purely fictional, was most likely drawn from another real, dramatic episode of Russia’s takeover of Ukrainian bases in the peninsula.

Nonetheless, against all expectations, Cherkasy leaves a rather positive impression as a war movie, despite its serious flaws. It avoids the pitfalls of propaganda and exaggerated caricatures and presents its message clearly and honestly.

The film also captures the atmosphere for the navy and the vast expanses of the sea. And after telling a dramatic story that sees the central character, Myshko, completely change his worldview because of what he experiences, it reminds viewers that Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to this day with no end in sight.