War and Punishment
Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2023
From “one of Russia’s smartest and best-sourced young journalists” (The New York Times)—the first work by a Russian author to reveal his country’s history of oppressing Ukraine, providing an unprecedented overview of the war for Ukrainian independence that affects us all.
As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar circulated a Facebook petition signed first by hundreds of his cultural and journalistic contacts and then by thousands of others. That act led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war, and Zygar fled Russia. In his time as a journalist, Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players—from politicians to oligarchs. As an expert on Putin’s moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin’s plan regarding Ukraine, and here, in clear, chronological order he explains how we got here.
In 1996 to 2004, Ukraine became an independent post-Soviet country where everyone was connected to the former empire at all levels, financially, culturally, psychologically. However, the elite anticipated that the empire would be back and punish them. From 2004 to 2018, there were many states inside one state, each with its own rulers/oligarchs and its own interests—some of them directly connected with Russia. In 2018, a new generation of Ukrainians arrive, and having grown in an independent country, they do not consider themselves to be part of Russia—and that was the moment when the war began, as Putin could not tolerate losing Ukraine forever.
Authoritative, timely, and vitally important, this is an unique overview of the war that continues to threaten the future of the entire world as we know it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The war in Ukraine is the crescendo of a long struggle between Ukrainian nationalism and a Russian imperialism that denies its existence, according to this impassioned history. Russian journalist Zygar (All the Kremlin's Men) recaps centuries of Ukrainian efforts to escape Russian domination, including 17th-century Cossack rebellions, 19th-century poet Taras Shevchenko's jump-starting of Ukrainian-language literature, and far-right Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera's anti-Soviet insurgency during WWII. Counterpointing this narrative is an examination of Russian writers and ideologues, including Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who mythologized a primeval unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to justify Moscow's rule over Kyiv. The book's second half focuses on Ukraine's history after independence in 1991, spotlighting the careers of rival presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky and depicting the kaleidoscopic wrangling between oligarchic political factions, broadly divided between the Ukrainian-speaking west of the country and the Russian-speaking east, and shaped by the Kremlin's meddling. Zygar gives a lucid, colorful account of this intricate history, especially of independent Ukraine's often corrupt politics and relations with Moscow. The result is an illuminating analysis of the conflict's deep roots in a symbiosis of cynical power plays and cultural delusions.
