The film “Calling Italian” was presented in Lviv
The film “Callous Italian” was presented at the Lviv Palace of Arts.
The film is about the story of the Maidan, volunteer National Guard Vitaly Markov. Due to unfair charges, he was detained in Bologna for almost three years (from June 2017 to November 2020).
Vitaliy was born in 1989 in the city of Khorostkiv, Ternopil region. In 2003, he moved with his family to Italy, where he graduated from technical college, obtained Italian citizenship and began working as a DJ. During the Revolution of Dignity in 2013, Vitaliy returned to Ukraine and became a member of the Self-Defense Forces, then a senior sergeant of the Operational Assignment Battalion named after General Serhiy Kulchitsky of the National Guard of Ukraine. He took part in the fighting for Slavyansk in the spring of 2014 In June 2017, Vitaly Markov left Ukraine for Italy to visit his mother. On June 30, 2017, at Bologna airport, Italian police arrested him on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Italian photojournalist Andrea Rode Kelly and his Russian colleague Andrei Mironov. They died as a result of mortar shelling in May 2014 near Slavyansk.
Markov has been in custody in Bologna since June 2017 on false charges. Personnel and veterans of the operational battalion named after. Serhiy Kulchitsky considered this case to be politically connected and aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian-Italian relations. They assured that Vitaly Markov could not have been physically involved in the deaths of the Italian and the Russian, because on May 24, 2014, there was no mortar in the battalion's armament.
On November 3, 2020, the Milan Court of Appeal fully acquitted the Ukrainian soldier. Ukraine defended its hero, even though he was behind bars in Italy for three years. The case was personally dealt with by Arsen Avakov, who constantly supported Vitaly, and the President of Ukraine.
The event was attended by the main character of the film Vitaliy Markiv, who said: “I could not give up, fall in spirit, because here they judged not me, but the whole Ukraine!” It should be noted that the film “Callsign Italian” was created by order of the State Enterprise “Center for the Protection of Information Space of Ukraine”. The director of the documentary is Artem Shevchenko.
