Liquidation (Season 1)

Liquidation (Ликвидация, 2007) is a Russian crime drama series you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Sergei Ursuliak. Odessa, 1946 — the war is over, but the city is not.

A gang of former wartime saboteurs, led by a figure known only as "the Akademik" — someone so shadowy his own men don't know his face — is raiding military depots and routing supplies to nationalist fighters. Stalin, unhappy with Marshal Zhukov, has sent him to command the Odessa district and restore order. The man who actually does the detective work is David Gotsman (Vladimir Mashkov), head of criminal investigations and a cop who will not put a guilty person away by crooked means, even when the crooked route is faster.

The series draws comparisons to the Soviet classic The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed and earns them — while holding a harder ethical line on methods. Vladimir Menshov, Ksenia Rappoport, and Konstantin Lavronenko round out a cast that plays this like a feature film. Sergei Makovetsky stepped in mid-production after Andrey Krasko died unexpectedly during filming. Stream Liquidation (2007) online on iFILM.