“An admission of weakness”: writer Jonathan Littell castigates Russia’s method in Ukraine

It is a country devastated by war that Jonathan Littell has seen with his own eyes. Franco-American writer, author of the novel The Benevolent recounting the hell of Nazism, elected Prix Goncourt in 2006, has published texts entitled Of Russian aggression, polemical writings, which report on Russia’s offensive in Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, until last October. On site in May 2022, the writer was able to see the damage caused by the war and the methods of the Russian army and the Wagner militia.

“We saw the worst horrors fairly quickly, after the first month of the war, when the Russian troops withdrew from the area north of kyiv (Boutcha, Irpin, etc.). We saw quite a few consequences of this occupation”, says Jonathan Littell, in a rare interview granted to Pierre de Vilno in Europe Evening Weekend.

Russian commanders “all have the same approach”

The Franco-American author met survivors “who were tortured”, and civilians “who had loved ones murdered, raped, tortured, mutilated… I don’t think it will get better until Russia is not pushed out of Ukrainian territory,” says Jonathan Littell, criticizing the barbaric methods used by Russian forces in Ukraine.

“All Russian commanders have strictly the same approach”, he underlines in reference to the appointment of Valéri Guerassimov as “commander of the combined group of troops” deployed in Ukraine to replace Sergei Surovikin. If he rejects the qualifier of “butcher” to designate these commanders, the author argues that it is the method used by the Russian army which is a “butchery”. “It’s almost a question of doctrine. Raze cities where there is resistance in order to be able to occupy them, torture and liquidate any potential opponent as soon as they occupy an area…”, lists the writer.

A “completely archaic” method

According to him, this method “seems subjectively and objectively completely archaic, in the sense that this is how war is waged. Ukrainians wage war in a much more contemporary way, that is to say more light, more agile, more mobile and also more respectful of international conventions. Russia, with its methods and the fact of aggression, has alienated all of its supporters”, analyzes the author, emphasizing that only the North Korea and Iran supplied him with equipment.

“For me, the Russian method is quite simply an admission of incompetence and weakness, a technological and intellectual weakness at the level of indoctrination”, considers Jonathan Littell, who plans to return to Ukraine soon to continue his stories.