continues
"Putin sympathizers are like Hitler sympathizers"
part 2/2

ZDFheute: You write in your new book that if there is any political danger left for Putin, it comes from those returning from the front.
Glukhovsky: In the end, the revolution of 1917 was not fought through by intellectuals, but by those returning from the front in the First World War. The situation is similar today.
The intellectuals or the middle class who took to the streets in russia against Putin were never able to offer any real resistance to the police. We don't even know how to fight. But soldiers who have been confronted with death, who have killed themselves, show a completely different willingness to use violence. Those returning from the front will destabilize russia for a long time to come and create a dangerous situation for the regime.

ZDFheute: Will it end up like the war in Afghanistan? The war ended in 1989 with a disaster for the Soviet Union, and two years later the state fell apart.
Glukhovsky: It is much worse today. In ten years of the Afghanistan war, 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. In the Ukraine war, we are talking about more than half a million dead and seriously injured after two and a half years. That is a huge trauma. Many who survive the war at the front come back as murderers, thieves and rapists. They will live among us in the future. A country like russia will not care about such people. There is no plan for that.

ZDFheute: What do you say to people in Germany who are demanding negotiations with Putin so that the war finally stops?
Glukhovsky: I'd tell them, Putin sympathizers are like Hitler sympathizers. If we negotiate a ceasefire with Putin now, it will be nothing more than a period of peace between two wars. The only long-term solution to this war is the defeat of the regime.
Any outcome of this war that Vladimir Putin could present to his people as a victory will inevitably strengthen and perpetuate this regime. And it will remain an aggressive authoritarian imperialist regime in nature.
Do the Europeans want that, do the Germans want that? Education in schools and kindergartens has become much more soldierly and patriotic since the beginning of the war, children are being indoctrinated. This means that Putin is preparing for a long fight against the West.

ZDFheute: You have many fans in Germany. What can they expect from you next?
Glukhovsky: A small collection of plays will be the next thing I will publish here. But also video games. I like experimenting with genres and media. And with a bit of luck there will be a film adaptation of my script, a realistic thriller. But I can't say more about that yet.

The interview originally was conducted in German by Eva Schmidt and can be read here.