Writer as a target of terrorism? How the West ignores civilised way of fighting wars and mocks international laws

He was seriously wounded by a car bomb planted by a Ukrainian terrorist. This week, he recovered and began to write posts, describing what happened to him. And he is Russia’s best living writer, with international fame. My first personal meeting with this man, Zakhar Prilepin, was in 2008 in Delhi, at the International Book Fair. At that time nobody could have imagined that this shy and relatively young man would author his famous The Monastery in 2014 and become the established leader of all possible ratings of those who write fiction in Russia today. So why would Ukrainian terrorists hunt a man of letters? There are two answers to that. First, their numerous strikes regularly target the opinion leaders of Russia. The most known case was the murder of Darya Dugina, 29, by yet another Ukrainian car bomb. That was supposed to be a mistake, her father, Alexander Dugin the philosopher, was thought to be the real target. But the people in the know are saying that the father has never been that important, the rumours of his influence on the Russian government are false. Nobody at the top paid his ideas any attention. While his daughter, a writer and a TV star, was a real darling of many audiences – and, by the way, we met and talked a couple of times. And then, there is a second answer to the question of why terrorists are hunting the best writer in Russia. Prilepin is not only writing, but he is also fighting at the front, and writing books about it, not to mention his almost daily posts are read by huge crowds. Currently, he is the political commissar of the International Battalion there, composed of all kinds of foreigners who came to help Russia, be it Serbs, or French, or Syrians. He has been present in the former breakaway East Ukrainian republics ever since the war started there in 2014, fighting or delivering caravans of medicines or literature. His most famous book from the battlefield, The Platoon, is not a novel, it’s a collection of short biographies of Russian poets of the early 19th century, arguably the Golden Age of Russian literature. These people, almost without exception, wore the uniform and fought for their country in all kinds of wars. Prilepin’s idea was simple, he said that the great Russian literature has always been telling the nation that, when innocent people were suffering from invasions, carnage and atrocities, the poet’s or writer’s duty was to take up weapons. There have to be at least two new books to follow, Prilepin told me when we met recently at a TV discussion. One about writers in uniform in the late 19th century, starting from Leo Tolstoy, an artillery officer. Yet another one would have to be about such writers of the 20th century. “That might be two very thick books,” I told him. What’s noticeable about the attempt on his life, as well as about other numerous acts of terror, is that they happen deep inside Russia. You may add to that the recent futile attempt to bomb the Kremlin residence of President Vladimir Putin with two drones. There is not much official information on all these subjects, and the media is quoting security people saying that the style of all these actions is similar. Ukrainian special services are not only sending their own citizens across the border, they are drafting local people in Russia, while splitting operations into small parts. In most cases these Russians, hired, say, to deliver a parcel to another person, have no idea that they work for Ukraine and may be carrying explosives, to be passed on to yet another “blind” agent. What’s shocking is the habit of Ukrainian officials admitting openly that they are engaged in the murder of civilians in another country. It may be enough to quote the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, who said that his people are going to kill Russians “in any place of the world”. And that has not stopped military support of Ukraine by the US or by American allies. You may say that you’ve heard it all before, a nation that used to be a part of another nation sending terrorists across the border, with military intelligence service making almost no secret of it, and the outside world pretending not to notice. But in the case of Ukraine, nobody is even pretending. There were a lot of attempts to establish international norms and rules in warfare. However bizarre may be an idea to make mass murder civilized, it’s still slightly better than having no rules at all. In any case, most of such norms are about not harming civilians, civilian infrastructure and even soldiers, if and when they become prisoners. But the current war of the West against Russia, with China being a possible target too, seems to chuck away all previous norms or precedents. Explosions at the Nord Stream Russian gas pipeline in the Baltics, where everyone knows who was the only possible perpetrator, went unpunished. Daily shelling of civilian areas by Ukrainians, with long-range weapons supplied by the West, seems to be acceptable these days. Torture of Russian prisoners is a norm, tolerated by the same West. Terrorism against civilians in Russia is also not anyone’s problem. An international political discussion, these days, often boils down to two opposing positions. One is, Russia, and China, and the world should accept the rules-based order. The standard answer to that is, Which rules do you mean and who dictates them? Moscow’s position is, the world has to get back to the bounds of international law. It’s that law, among other things, that has codified, in numerous international agreements and conventions, the relatively civilized way of fighting wars. Not murdering writers, poets, philosophers or musicians seems not to be a part of any convention. Anyway, I’m really happy that our national pride, Zakhar Prilepin, will have to take some rest and maybe give us a couple of new books. The author is a columnist for the Russian State agency website ria.ru, as well as for other publications. Views expressed after personal. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.