One of these documentaries, which delves into the life of Stepan Bandera, one of the leaders of Ukrainian nationalists, topped the ratings of UA:First, the national television channel in Ukraine, for the year 2015.
The block was then at the core of the opposition Ukrainian politics, mainly formed by Viktor Yushchenko's "Our Ukraine" and Yulia Tymoshenko's All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland".
[4][5] Piddubny's longest involvement was with the currently defunct Kharkiv weekly newspaper, Pyatnica, where he served as an editor-in-chief from 2003[6] to 2011 (in paper format)[7][8] and then until 2015 when it continued (as an online publication).
[1][6] In 2009, one of Piddubny's projects in the council was the electronic condolence book of Kharkiv Oblast which aimed to preserve information about local victims of World War II.
[14] In the summer of 2010, Piddubny helped defending Kharkiv's urban forest from the road laying and the associated tree-cutting initiated by Hennadiy Kernes.
The attempt to defend the forest failed, however, as the protesters were beaten and their camp destroyed by pro-Kernes titushky, and the road was eventually built.
[23] It utilized YouTube as its underlying platform, and offered a mix of studio programs and live news, often from unpaid stringers armed only with mobile phones.
[25] Piddubny remained in opposition in the Kharkiv City Council; occasionally, his verbal altercations with Hennadiy Kernes attracted national attention.
[28][29] Piddubny's career as a film director began in 2010 with an hour-long documentary, Undesirables (Russian: Неугодные), inspired by his work on the electronic condolence book of Kharkiv Oblast.
[33][35][36] The film received overall positive reviews from critics, who thought Piddubny managed to maintain an independent viewpoint free of propaganda for either side, and that such an account of Stepan Bandera was long overdue.
[37][38] Boris Bahteev, a Detector Media [uk] critic, believes, however, that Piddubny hadn't completely freed his worldview from the Soviet propaganda and mythology created around Bandera.
[28] Premiering in October 2015, the documentary Crimea: Maximum Security Resort is a four-part miniseries that explores 250 years of the Crimean history.
[31][47] In 2019, it received Gran Prix at the historical film festival Poza Chasom[31] and was the subject of masterclasses at the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture.