Klitschko on Putin: “I was surprisingly impressed by him at the time” Significantly more than expected: Authorities in Karabakh report around 70 deaths in explosions

Wladimir Klitschko looked back on Tuesday evening on more than a year and a half of war against ZDF. In his very personal analysis of the situation, the Ukrainian former world boxing champion described on “Markus Lanz” how the Russian attack had changed his homeland and his own life.

People adapt without getting used to the terrible face of war, said the younger brother of Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko. He himself could tell from the eyes and faces of the people depicted whether a photo from Ukraine had been taken before or after the start of hostilities. “During the day life seems quite normal and at night you hear explosions,” Klitschko said. He also mentioned a meeting with Vladimir Putin.

These were the guests at “Markus Lanz”:

He met him in 2011 at a sporting event in the Russian city of Sochi. At the time, he was very impressed by Putin’s open and down-to-earth manner. The people around him also seemed “very reserved, very polite.” Today he knows that Putin is an experienced expert on the human psyche and knows how to win people over. “I was surprisingly impressed with him at the time,” Klitschko admitted.

According to his own statement, the Ukrainian no longer has any illusions about the Russian president’s intentions. Putin will continue to provoke, attack and work on his plan to restore a Russian empire. If Ukraine falls, the Baltic states and Poland would be next, the ex-athlete was convinced.

Lost many Russian friends

Klitschko estimated that ten percent of the Russian friends he once had are probably still with him: “The 90 percent don’t reach out anymore. They said they understood why Putin attacked.” These people had completely fallen for Putin’s propaganda about Nazi Ukraine and its evil Western supporters, the Ukrainian stated resignedly.

Olivia Kortas confirmed that Putin’s war aims have not changed since his forces invaded parts of Ukraine. The journalist “Zeit” explained that he was concerned about the destruction and extinction of the Ukrainian nation and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government. From Kiev, her main location, the foreign correspondent reported that people were living more intensely than before.

But when you get closer to the front or into areas that have been liberated again, you clearly see how a normal life is no longer possible ‘because people distrust each other, because the neighbors have betrayed each other’. Yet the Ukrainians are not a broken people, even if they sometimes have the impression that that is exactly what they want to hear in Germany, Kortas said.

Particularly treacherous Russian crimes in this war include the kidnappings of Ukrainian children and youth, which were the subject of the second part of the program. Tatyana Kiel, the founder of the ‘#WeAreAllUkrainians’ initiative, accused Russia of systematically kidnapping boys and girls to subject them to propaganda brainwashing in camps and giving them to Russian families.

The number of children abducted is difficult to determine

Twenty thousand such cases have been reliably documented through reports from relatives, said Klitschko’s longtime business partner, who also published a book on the subject with the ex-professional boxer. However, the number of unreported cases mentioned to her is between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand. Russian sources even speak of seven hundred thousand young people. The reason that there are no more precise figures has to do with the targeted approach of the Russian authorities. “Once they are distributed among the Russian population, the name and date of birth will be changed. Then it is almost impossible to locate these children,” says Kiel.

Kortas also suspected that there were “much, much more” than twenty thousand, citing war orphans for whom no family member was looking for as an example of unrecorded cases.

However, there was consensus within the group that Russia was taking a strategic approach to kidnapping young Ukrainians. Kortas described low-income Ukrainian parents as specifically pressured to transfer their children to Russian care for security reasons and then not get them back. And Kiel added that there was a clear incentive associated with subsequent distribution within Russia. “The families in Russia get money for this,” explains the manager who is working to get the children back.

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