Dmitry Glukhovsky, who is responsible for Metro 2033 and its sequels, faces up to 10 years in prison for violating the law that prohibits “defaming the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”

Metro 2033 author Dmitry Glukhovsky faces a lengthy prison sentence in Russia for criticising the country’s invasion of Ukraine. According to Radio Free Europe, Glukhovsky was put on the Interior Ministry’s wanted list on 7 June for violating a March law criminalising independent reporting and protesting against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In a post on Telegram, Glukhovsky wrote that he was “accused of defaming the armed forces of the Russian Federation for a post on Instagram.” This obviously refers to this post, which he made on 12 March, shortly after the law against criticism of the war came into force:

“Stop the war!” the Instagram post reads. “Recognise that this is a real war against an entire nation and stop it! Mariupol.”

“I am ready to repeat everything that was said there,” Glukhovsky wrote in his Telegram message. “‘Stop the war! Realise that this is a war against an entire nation and stop it!”

Reuters reports that Glukhovsky, who launched Metro 2033, is the first “major cultural figure” to be prosecuted under the new law, and it has not gone unnoticed. Lyubov Sobol, a senior Russian political figure and associate of jailed Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, wrote on Twitter that “Putin used to fear only politicians, now he fears writers.”

Glukhovsky, who is not currently in Russia, according to RFE, is best known as the author of the Metro novels, about survivors of a global nuclear war who are forced to live a miserable life in the ruined depths of the Moscow subway. The books came to the attention of gamers in 2010 with the release of the cult shooter Metro 2033, which spawned two increasingly successful sequels, Metro Last Light and Metro Exodus.

Ukrainian studio 4A Games developed all three games in the series.

The studio moved its headquarters to Malta in 2014 after Russia’s initial incursions into Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas but still maintains a studio in Kyiv.

Russian opposition politician Vladimir Milov, who is also a collaborator of Navalny, and investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov were also on the Interior Ministry’s wanted list at around the same time as Metro 2033’s author Glukhovsky. In a message posted on his Twitter account, jailed Kremlin critic Andrei Pivarov noted that Glukhovsky and Milov had been added to the list and wrote that “the machinery of repression will trample everyone underfoot.”

Source: Reuters (1, 2)

На писателя (!) Дмитрия Глуховского завели уголовное дело и обьявили в розыск. Ничего себе! Раньше Путин только политиков боялся, теперь и писателей тоже.

Дмитрию шлю лучи поддержки! Непонятно, за что конкретно уголовка, но явно же за то, что оставался человеком. pic.twitter.com/GWNNU0Zede

— Соболь Любовь (@SobolLubov) June 7, 2022