THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR

An insightful and discouraging study of a conflict that goes back further than February 2022.

A prolific, lucid scholar with a host of books about Russia and Ukraine under his belt, Plokhy opens his latest with a chronicle of the 1,000-year rise of the Russian/Soviet empires. In the remainder of the narrative, he examines the past three decades, during which the empire collapsed, declined into misery and a failed democracy. Plokhy emphasizes that Vladimir Putin considers the Soviet collapse a tragedy and yearns to reestablish Russia—if not as an empire, at least as a rival power to America and China with a vast sphere of influence. Putin’s vision has been no secret to its newly independent neighbors, who yearned for NATO’s protection. Seven of these Eastern European nations joined NATO in 2004. America supported Ukraine’s application, but France and Germany, uneasy about Putin’s fierce opposition, vetoed it. At first, Putin attempted to win over Ukraine by the same means he used in Russia, but, although chaotic and corrupt, Ukraine remained a democracy. Amenable to Putin’s pressures, its president could do little without parliament’s consent, and unlike Russia’s curiously well-behaved opposition, Ukrainian protesters turned out in massive numbers. In 2014, a frustrated Putin annexed Crimea and two eastern Ukrainian provinces. This had the unexpected consequence of eliminating most Russian-speaking sympathizers and uniting the remaining Ukrainian people. Plokhy identifies that annexation as the beginning of the current war. Putin invaded under the delusion (shared by America in earlier invasions) that the enemy would welcome his army; it was the first of many disappointments. Plokhy devotes half his text to the conflict itself, and so far, no unexpected surprises have turned up in the news. Russia’s initial advances were followed by successful Ukrainian counterattacks, and the war seems to have settled into a brutal, high-tech slog. The text includes maps.

Readers aiming to follow the fighting should read the daily news, but for a complete picture, this is the book.