Riga Pavel Filatev wears a pendant with a cross on his right wrist. You can only see him on the screen when he puffs on his cigarette. Filatev is somewhere in France right now, video chatting with journalists, despite the wintry temperatures, he’s sitting outside.
“I don’t want to stand before God and have to explain to him how I continued to participate in the war out of faintheartedness and knowing it was wrong,” he says. And that’s what Filatev writes in his book “The Forbidden Report”, which is available in Russian for free on the Internet. The book is particularly popular as an audio book on YouTube, where it has already reached hundreds of thousands of listeners.
Filatev’s book is one of the most impressive that was published this year on the subject of Russia. Countless books pick up on the Russia-Ukraine war. The Handelsblatt presents three titles that particularly help to understand the connections. In this case the Russian perspective.
With his report, Filatev provides an insight into the state of the Russian army that has not been seen since the beginning of the war. In almost 200 pages, the deserter describes the first weeks of the war against Ukraine, in which he took part as a soldier. Due to an injury, Filatev requires medical treatment in March; he returns to Russia and writes down his experiences there.
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The descriptions of the chaotic conditions, the lack of communication within the units and between members of the army are particularly revealing. The conclusion: equipment, provisions, preparation and planning of the entire war are a catastrophe. Filatev thus confirms the assessments of many military observers and provides an important building block for understanding the state of the army in the largest country in the world.
Pavel Filatev: ZOV – The forbidden report
Hoffmann and Campe
Hamburg 2022
192 pages
23 euros
Translation: Maria Rajer
His hope is that his openness will help things improve and grievances will be uncovered. “Everything is in the hands of our people, not the governments,” writes Filateev, appealing to the population to take responsibility for the actions of the state.
The book is marked by anger and disappointment about the state of the country and the army – but also by patriotism. “This war is the worst thing that could have happened,” writes Filatev. However, he said in the video call that he could not wish Russia a defeat, because that would mean the loss of many more lives. At the same time, for the same reason, he could not wish Ukraine a defeat either.
Marat Gabidullin: Wagner – Putin’s Secret Army.
Econ, Berlin 2022
304 pages
22.99 euros
Translation: Christiane Koschinski, Jörg Lukas.
The inside view of the Wagner mercenary group, described by Marat Gabidullin in “Wagner – Putin’s Secret Army” in the summer, received similar attention to Filatev’s descriptions. Combined with Filatev’s insider account, a fuller picture emerges of how Russia is conducting its war against Ukraine.
In 2014, the mercenary group attracted international attention for the first time. At that time she fought in the Donbass. Thus, Gabidullin’s execution is also an important reminder that Russia’s war against Ukraine did not start in February, but years earlier. The author justified the fact that he went public with the fact that he considers Russia’s war against Ukraine to be wrong.
Great power fantasies of the Kremlin boss
Gabidullin describes in detail the internal structures of the group, the connections between the rulers of the mercenary army, the leadership as well as combat operations in Ukraine and Syria. Until 2019 Gabidullin belonged to the group, his earnings were up to 3000 euros.
From Gabidullin’s report there are clear indications that Wagner is part of the Russian war effort and does not act separately from the Kremlin. And even the Russian leadership no longer denies the existence of the group.
Like Filateev, Gabidullin also criticizes the poor equipment, inadequate training and organization, and he also reveals how strongly Wagner was influenced by the Russian military and by leaders who moved from one institution to another. Just like Filateev left the army, Gabidullin left the group after an injury, albeit in 2019.
Masha Gessen: The Man Without a Face: Vladimir Putin
Piper Paperback
Munich 2013
400 pages
12 euros
The Russian-American journalist and author Masha Gessen provided the answer to the question of how such structures can arise, in which chaos and injustice prevail instead of law and order, as described by Filatjew and Gabidullin – but unintentionally. Because her book “The Man Without a Face” was published in 2012. The early biography of Russian President Vladimir Putin is possibly more relevant today than ever.
Up close, Gessen describes the cornerstone of Putin’s political career in St. Petersburg, where she also lives at the time, where she knows everything and has an excellent network. She describes Putin’s boorish and seemingly unrestrained behavior towards political competitors or civil rights groups, tracing his ties to organized crime where possible, as well as the brutality the president still uses today to achieve political goals – patterns that Gessen describes for a long time before they began to shape Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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In chapters like “Once a spy, always a spy,” Gessen makes no secret of her dislike of Putin. Equally relevant from today’s perspective is the far-sighted chapter “Back to the USSR” (also titled in German in English), which deals with the great power fantasies of the Kremlin boss.
Examples such as the Chechen wars in the 1990s and 2000s or the actions of the security apparatus in the hostage crisis in Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater, in which 130 people died in 2002, make it clear how the relationship between the Kremlin and security forces under the influence of Putin is getting tighter and tighter – to the detriment of the population.
Gessen shows Putin’s understanding of how disputes and political struggles should be conducted – and how early the Kremlin boss and former KGB agent began to adapt the security apparatus to his advantage. The result of this can be clearly recognized in the structures that Gabidullin and Filatjews describe today.
More: War from the Ukrainian point of view – “I feel the first rush of hatred”