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A Russian journalist and Putin critic examines the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Panyushkin, the author of Twelve Who Don’t Agree, argues that by delineating the plights of ordinary Ukrainian citizens, the immensity and toll of the violence and suffering should become apparent. As a journalist who left Russia yet remains a keen observer of the conflict, the author maintains some distance—e.g., as he tries to point out to his patriotically pro-Russian father the kind of propaganda that the Russian government spews about Ukraine and the West. However, as Panyushkin reveals, most Russians believe the invasion was justified and provoked. In a narrative that takes place soon after the invasion on February 24, 2022, the author follows characters such as Alla, a soil scientist in Kharkiv who scrambled to gather water and food supplies when the bombs began falling. Panyushkin shows how many of the people he profiles had divided loyalties, which made them uncertain about where to flee. The author highlights myriad heartbreaking cases: hospital patients desperately waiting for delayed or canceled surgeries; caretakers attempting to help the sick and traumatized children; refugees and terminally ill patients who were under full Ukrainian care and medication but then cast aside in shelters and labeled as “inconvenient.” Some of the other characters include survivors in occupied Bucha and Mariupol and “daredevil” drivers who emerged mysteriously to aid refugees, often for a large fee. Throughout, Panyushkin offers valuable insight into how war propaganda operates, on either side, when people are desperately fleeing danger and starvation. “It seems to me,” he writes, “that sooner or later all the participants become pitiless and bitter.…Do you know what the civilians and refugees see during the war? They see nothing.”

A courageous work by a Russian author willing to look beyond the rhetoric on both sides of the firing line.