George Soros’ “Reporters” Write Hit Piece Smearing Oliver Stone’s Co-Producer
OCCRP report targets Igor Lopatonok, co-producer of “Ukraine on Fire”
A group which calls itself the “Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project” (OCCRP) and claims to expose nefarious individuals which it accuses of all kinds of wickedness, turns out to be funded by George Soros and the US State Department. And its goal appears to be the discrediting of influential individuals ahead of the 2024 presidential elections in the US.
You can read the OCCRP’s “investigation” about Igor Lopatonok here. They claim to have taken two years to uncover some deep, dark, scary secrets about the guy, but the article is not really an investigation — unless you consider lies and hyperbole to be “investigative.” And if it took them two years to put this hit piece together, as they claim, then they must be the slowest “investigative reporters” in the world.
Oliver Stone has issued a statement about this effort to smear him and his colleague and posted it on his Facebook Page:
Statement on OCCRP (the George Soros-funded Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project) Report
For the record, I’m clarifying several mistakes made in a recent report about my involvement on three documentary films.
I worked with Igor Lopatonok on the documentaries “Ukraine on Fire” and “Revealing Ukraine” as an Executive Producer and interviewer (Igor was the director), both of which cast a clarifying light on a war I believe was misreported in the U.S. for propaganda reasons. In a similar manner, I participated in Igor’s documentary “Qazaq” about former President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, which was non-political in nature and highlighted the country of Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev’s role as a go-between with Russia (post-1992) and the United States, which has significant oil and gas interests in Kazakhstan. To clarify, I was not the director on “Qazaq”; my involvement was limited. Aside from these documentaries, I passed on a proposed film about Lukashenko of Belarus and have not approved and was not aware of any other pitches to world leaders.
In all of my films and documentaries since the 1980s, I have consistently worked toward a goal of peace and justice — not war or injustice — between all countries. For those who accuse without bothering to look at the work in question, the proof of this should be evident in the films I’ve made, even when they clash with U.S. establishment’s point-of-view.
For those interested, my time is mostly occupied with writing a second memoir (with Simon & Schuster) after the publication of “Chasing the Light” (2020), and also completing a new documentary on President da Silva (“Lula”) of Brazil. I’m also working with partners on another feature film, whose subject is confidential until it’s ready for principal photography.
Another journalist, who is only 15 years old but already much better than the individuals behind the smear piece, shared her thoughts on this attempt to harm Lopatonok, who in fact is her Godfather. Faina Savenkova of Lugansk, a city in what was once Ukraine but is now Russian territory, has been living in a war zone since the age of five. She started speaking out when she was eleven years old, bravely appearing before a UN Security Council, in an effort to draw attention to the plight of her Russian-speaking neighbors, who were being shelled and bombarded by the regime in Kiev, which declared WW2 Nazi collaborator and mass murderer Stepan Bandera a “state hero.”
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you have already read about Faina and you are familiar with the evil wrought by Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) that rampaged through Poland and murdered more than 100,000 Jews and Poles in Lvov alone. If these facts are unfamiliar to you, please click on the hyperlinks I’ve included above.
In the meantime, here is what young Faina had to say about the OCCRP’s “report.” I translated the article from Russian for her, and you can read it here or go to her page on Medium and subscribe.
Faina Savenkova: What’s wrong with you, USA?
I recently came across an interesting and enormous article at intelligencer.today about Soros and the US State Department instructing the “Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project” (OCCRP) to attack Trump supporters in the midst of the 2024 election. It was surprising to me, because it’s commonly believed that there are still groups in the US capable of constructively criticizing the US government without repercussions and harassment from the state. But what puzzled me most was the lack of response from a foundation with the startling name of OCCRP. And while I was minding my own business, the response came — a scary investigation about Igor Lopatonok, director, producer and screenwriter. As you can imagine, I couldn’t resist it. There is a kind of amusement in it. And the investigative style is very recognizable.
So, what is Igor Lopatonok accused of? The first thing that strikes me most of all is the attempt to belittle this man, to say nasty things about him. Literally: “In 2008, he emigrated to the United States, and a year later he opened a modest by Hollywood standards firm Grading Dimension Pictures Inc. It has only 31 followers on Facebook. In broken English, the page states that ‘the studio specializes in film making — from pre- to post-production.’”
What did we just see? Well, ladies and gentlemen, first of all they are trying to show us that Mr. Lopatonok is a loser who didn’t bother to learn English. Unlike the authors of the exposé, apparently. But I would like to ask the gentlemen from the foundation with a name that not only I, but also many Americans, I think, will not be able to pronounce the first time: do you know how many famous people came to live in the United States, speaking, as you say, broken English? Do you know how much these people have done for America’s fame and prosperity? I always “like” the attempts by some journalists to insult and belittle the person they are writing about. Can’t you find better ways to assert yourself? Then it remains to be seen who you are belittling more: the target of your next “exposé,” or yourself.
“Although Lopatonok moved to the United States and obtained American citizenship, he still openly expresses pro-Kremlin views on social media and appears on the Russian state media outlet Sputnik. He visits a YouTube channel called The Politics of Survival, hosted by Tara Reid.” What a horrible character! Truly — world class evil is going on here! I hope I don’t need to clarify that this is sarcasm. As far as I know because of my age, the US was considered a free country until recently. Or has something changed? According to the logic of these journalists, freedom of speech and opinion should not exist in the US, thanks to the efforts of the valiant workers of the OCCRP. Come on, Lopatonok is appearing in Russian media! This is a disgusting act according to the OCCRP’s grievous investigators. But… One detail that is already worth paying attention to in order to understand that the OCCRP article was commissioned and written solely to smear Trump supporters: Tara Reid, who accused the current US president of inappropriate behavior and was forced to leave the US. Why was she — an American woman who spoke out against Biden — singled out in this article as a villain apparently even greater than Igor Lopatonok himself? Is it actually because this organization is being used for the benefit of a group of people in power in order to shape public opinion before the elections? Meaning that the initial accusations against the Soros Foundation were not unfounded?
Going back to Lopatonok’s appearance in the Russian media, one can’t help but wonder why this is such a terrible thing according to OCCRP journalists. Has the US declared war on Russia? Or vice versa? Doesn’t a person in a free democratic country have the right to stand up for his or her own beliefs and visit the TV channels he or she sees fit? Yes, a person can dislike fascism in Ukraine. Yes, a person can dislike Biden’s administration. But isn’t it a sign of the rule of law when you can say it without being harassed by business organizations and biased media?
And really, the journalistic investigation that comes to us with such assertions is perplexing from its very first words:
“The main points of the investigation:
- Lopatonok’s team prepared scripts for movies about Alexander Lukashenko, Ilham Aliyev and other authoritarian leaders.
- Judging by the presentations, the purpose of these films was to “white-wash” their reputations: the dictators were invited to discuss issues related to the protection of human rights and democracy.
- The interviewer for the two films was to be Oliver Stone. It is not known how much he was aware of these projects. Neither movie was ever made.
- Judging from the leaked emails, one of Lopatonok’s films about Ukraine was probably sponsored by Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch and close associate of Vladimir Putin.”
So is this really an investigation that took two years to complete, as the journalists claim? Just these assumptions and statements along the lines of “someone said something to someone and we think they meant this and that.” Really? “Probably”, “judging by the presentations” — this is the proof of “white-washing” the reputation of dictators? “None of the movies were ever made.” Or am I confusing things? In general, discussing nonexistent movies in an exposé article, if it’s not an investigation into the embezzlement of the budgets of these movies, is kind of… weird, don’t you think? But okay, let’s say that the dystopian era described by the science fiction classics has come to pass: thought crime is a crime after all. However, the unnamed witnesses to this… Oh, and no sources other than general “writing” and the like are cited…? As far as I know, when exposés were posted on Wikileaks, the evidence there was on a slightly different level, not just gossip from unknown persons. Why is the article full of personal photos, but no screenshots or photos to support any point of the allegations? Oh, right, they didn’t make the movies… and in all fairness, the presentation covers are not much of an argument either. But that’s just nitpicking.
Still, they are revealing the level of their investigation in all its glory. And by the way, it took two years to present us with pictures from the Internet instead of actual evidence. But why now, during a presidential election? Why not six months ago? Or a year? Because there was no order for the media to harass the undesirables? Or did carefully guarded, unnamed sources suddenly remember their stories just before the election? Well, it’s a kind of amusement for people: before the US presidential election, they suddenly remember their grievances against members of a candidate’s team. As long as the candidate is not the incumbent president, of course, otherwise it will be awkward and they will have to forget their offenses until better times.
By the way, an interesting piece of the overall puzzle: “Our editor ended the conversation when a flustered Lopatonok started shouting threats like ‘we will deal with you personally’ and ‘we will destroy you.’” In Igor Lopatonok’s interview, as far as I know, OCCRP was quite Russian in recommending that he go on a trip and in wishing him a happy personal life. Why are you taking such sincere wishes so personally? And yes, I would like to know why Igor Lopatonok calls one of the OCCRP informants a murderer? Isn’t that why the journalists carefully shield his name from the public’s ears?
And a small example from the same interview:
“We saw the movie about Nazarbayev.”
“You couldn’t see all the episodes. They were not online.”
Just like that. Deception is deception.
What did I personally learn from the OCCRP investigation? That besides listing biographical facts about Igor Lopatonok’s life and career, other facts are hard to find. But it becomes clear that the reason for the appearance of this misinvestigation was so that an article from a private foundation, apparently sponsored by George Soros, was inserted into the media in order to form the desired public opinion, and the state is involved. All in all, the OCCRP has engaged in their usual harassment of the undesirables.
Sad. But such is journalism in modern America, it seems.
It is up to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself who is lying, and who is telling the truth. It should be clear, however, that mocking someone because of his accent is not really the work of investigative journalists, but the work of sociopaths eager to sway public opinion against someone for the sake of personal gain. And what gain might that be? One only has to understand how much money has been made because of this conflict in Ukraine, and who is profiting most of all.
George Soros has made his intentions clear…
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong is an Emmy-award winning reporter and journalist. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. You can support Deborah’s writing at Paypal or Patreon, or donate via Substack.
Great article Deborah! The West has added Soros to its list of those trying to destabilize Russia. These are the last pathetic attempts by the Imperial power as Russia and China rise to global prominence.
Thanks, Deborah. The USA and its allies are squirming, and their words and behaviour gives that away.