On Friday, N1 television's Ivana Dragicevic talked to Fedor Grechaninov, the director of strategy and business development at Media Group Ukraine (MGU) based in Kyiv, to share his first-hand account of living through Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

His company MGU had co-produced the 2021 drama series Silence directed by Croatian director Dalibor Matanic, set in both Croatia and Ukraine. Grechaninov talked to Ivana Dragicevic about the situation in Kyiv on Friday, about military planes and helicopters flying over, about fear and shock felt by Ukrainians and how people can never prepare for the horror of war.

“When you wake up in the morning because of explosions outside in your city… Well, this is the kind of experience you probably don’t like having,” said Grechaninov.

In the interview, Grechaninov also reflected on Kremlin’s propaganda in the run-up to the invasion, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s arguments about the “de-nazification” of Ukraine, which he called incredible.

“Our key values are freedom and dignity. And I think freedom and dignity so far from the ideas of Nazis, this is kind of the worst explanation they could find,” he said.

In the context of the difficult situation that Ukraine is in, Grechaninov mentioned the television series Silence, which talks about primal evil and how important it is to talk about it and also point it out.

He said the West doesn’t really understand what’s going on, because, according to him, this is not a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but a conflict between freedom and the complete opposite of freedom.