A very difficult watch but this unflinching documentary is a reminder of the stark realities of war-especially the affects upon an innocent civilian population. The scenes of parents grieving over their dead children are particularly harrowing.

An almost immediate response is anger towards Putin for starting this and the hope that the m other f ucker dies a particularly nasty death very soon and a kind of f uck the consequences, just give Ukraine all the military hardware it needs to strike back at Russia. But, of course, to kill innocent Russian civilians is to be no better than them and an escalation that drags even more into the war surely cannot be the right thing to do.

The director shows us the truth of the adage of war making good people better and bad people worse but what this documentary should also do is remind us all of the very real consequences of the actions of any war-mongers. A needed reminder perhaps following the inevitable kind of fatigue that sets in after so many months of seeing news reports on the war.

It also isn't just about Ukraine, it is Gaza, Africa and countless other places where innocents suffer. This, of course, is nothing new but sadly also proves that for all the advances in technology through the centuries, humankind has really progressed so little. That so many narcissistic- and sometimes, frankly, evil- men continue to be enabled into positions of power is surely quite a damning inditement of our societies and species.