Danish director and filmmaker Lars von Trier, no stranger to controversy over both his films and his public statements, defended himself Thursday after posting an Instagram post criticizing the Danish donation of F-16s to Ukraine, AFP and News.ro report .

Lars von TrierPhoto: Tariq Mikkel Khan / AFP / Profimedia Images

“And the lives of Russians matter,” he wrote on Tuesday in English on this social network after the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi to Denmark, where he, together with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, inspected the F-16 aircraft that will be delivered to Kyiv .

The director’s message was addressed to “Mr. Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, not forgetting Ms. Frederiksen, who yesterday, like a young woman in love, posed with a wide smile in the cockpit of one of the most horrific killing machines of our time.” .

This text, the comment on which is turned off, attracted the attention of the Russian and Ukrainian mass media.

“I was just stating the obvious: all lives in this world matter. It seems a forgotten phrase from a time when pacifism was a virtue,” the 67-year-old director explained in a new post on Thursday.

The Danish director’s comments were well received in Russia

In recent days, the Danish press has questioned the claim by Lars von Trier, who said in 2011 that he “sympathized” with Hitler before apologizing for his statements.

In an interview with daily newspaper Politiken, academic Jacob Beck Christensen said that Russia welcomed the director’s first comments “with open arms.”

“It supports the idea that Russia is not a ruthless aggressor, but that this is a legitimate conflict in which Russia is equally unhappy every time it suffers losses,” explained the social media researcher.

Lars von Trier, one of Denmark’s leading filmmakers, has directed over 14 feature films, many of them disturbing and sometimes excruciatingly violent.

Known for his original dark humor, the Copenhagen-born director has the word “FAK” tattooed on his fingers. It won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000Dancer in the dark.

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