A top Ukrainian official is taking Danish director Lars von Trier to task for fretting about the safety of Russians in light of Denmark’s decision to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The Melancholia director took to Instagram on Tuesday to criticize Denmark’s provision of the “terrible killing machines” and declare that “Russian lives matter too.” In response, Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, challenged von Trier to “imagine that it’s his city that’s being hit by Russian missiles every day, his father or mother who was killed, his grandson who was deported to Russia, his wife who was raped by a Russian pillager, his home that was burned down.” On Twitter, he wrote that Ukraine doesn’t live in an “abstraction” like in the movies, but in the “harsh reality” of war waged by Russia. “Behind every living Russian terrorist is a dead Ukrainian. The choice between executioner and victim becomes a tragedy when an artist chooses the side of the executioner,” Danilov said.