Eight books for understanding Ukraine on the second anniversary of the invasion – World Order

Excellent review of Ukrainian history. This is one of the books that we already recommend in 2022. It goes back to the country’s mythological origins, with the arrival of the Vikings and the creation of Kievan Rus’ in the 9th century. This also explains the centuries of Byzantine, Tatar, Lithuanian, Polish and of course Russian influence. This is an easy-to-follow, very linear book, focused on explaining the origins of modern Ukraine.

Its origins are found in the 17th century, although in reality the Ukrainian nation would appear in the 19th century and take the form of a state in the early 20th century. The journey ends in the years before the Russian invasion of 2022 as the book was published in 2015. However, predictions that the war that broke out in 2014 would continue in the future proved prophetic.

Plaukhi later wrote another book, Russian-Ukrainian WarPublished by the same publisher in 2023, it analyzes the immediate background of the war and its first months. works as an update doors of europe And it is a useful supplement to understanding the current conflict.

2. ukraine stationby Borja Lesheras (KO Books)

A stunning portrait of post-Maidan Ukraine. That is, the country that revolutionized in 2014 and began to establish its democracy and looked towards Europe, but instead faced the Russian occupation of Crimea and the war in Donbass. Although the book was published in November 2022, its writing began six years earlier. And it doesn’t talk about the current war: what’s interesting is how it reflects the reality of Ukraine before the 2022 invasion.

Lasheras knows the country well: he has been traveling there for a decade and knows the language. He visits cafés, cultural centers or World War II monuments, bathes in the Dniester River, talks with intellectuals and artists, takes the train… He gives voice to the people he talks to. Additionally, he references Russian and Ukrainian novels and films and essays about the region throughout his story, paving the way for readers who want to know more.

3. attackBy Luke Harding (Desto)

Harding is a famous British journalist, correspondent Guardian In Moscow between 2007 and 2011, until he was expelled. He now covers the war from Ukraine, he was in Kiev when the invasion began. The book details the first months of the war. It talks about the Bucha massacre, the defense of Mariupol, the seizure of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant. He tours the country – Odessa, Kherson, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Bakhmut, Avdiivka … – talks to anonymous soldiers and civilians.

This book is a very good depiction of how the country experienced the first six months of the war. But Harding ended writing it after the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv in September 2022, and his conclusions now seem wrong. “Moscow believed that time was on its side. Putin believed that the West’s resolve to support Ukraine would weaken (…). The Americans would force Kiev to accept an unfavorable armistice on Russian terms. This scenario seemed unlikely,” the author said. Unfortunately, after two years of war the reality appears to be the opposite.

This trilogy analyzes the war from a military perspective. The books are written almost live, when the fighting in some areas was not yet over. They devote chapters to military strategy, logistics, military mobilization, cyber warfare, the growing role of drones, the role of each side’s allies or the geopolitical implications of the conflict.

First, First 100 days of Russian invasion, analyzes Russian mistakes and the Ukrainian response in the first months. The second describes the next phase, starting in the summer of 2022, ending with Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson. The last one so far, was published earlier this year and describes the stagnation of the past few months.

A mix of long reportage and historical dissemination, this book is a great way to understand the conflict before the 2022 invasion. Journalist Argemino Barro traveled to Ukraine in the spring of 2014 to cover the Maidan and Donbass war. Here he explains the history of Russia – the mythical medieval empire that is the origin of the present-day Russian and Ukrainian nations -, the repression of the Ukrainian nation during the Russian Empire, the Stalinist famine, the collapse of the USSR… and he uses them to explain Describing his time in Kiev and Donbass due to conflict.

6. VoroshilovgradBy Serhiy Zadan (Gutenberg Galaxy)

The Donbass region has been the center of war with Russia since 2014. The novel travels there, specifically to one of the regional capitals, Lugansk, which was called Voroshilovgrad in Soviet times. Zhdan, one of the most recognized writers of Ukrainian literature, paints a portrait of the space between the last era of communism and the first decades of the 21st century, before the Maidan Revolution in 2014. Characters without jobs or profits, corruption, bossy locals – not to mention gangsters – and the desolate landscape are the pieces with which this novel is put together.

Without being a purely political book, it helps to understand the peculiarities of the region and how it fits into the more general historical line of Ukraine. Another novel by Zadan translated into Spanish, OrphanageAbout a family torn apart on the front lines of the 2014 Donbass war.

This collection of articles and notes is a privileged window into the occupied Donbass before the 2022 invasion. Many Ukrainians from the region fled when the war began in 2014. Asayev, a Donetsk-born journalist, chose to stay. For years he documented the reality in the pro-Russian sphere, publishing in international media and social networks under a pseudonym. This book brings that work together.

However, Aseev was discovered in 2017. He was detained, imprisoned and tortured by Russian supporters. After being released in 2019, he described his experience in prison in another book, In the concentration camp on Paradise Street, When Russia invaded the country in 2022, Aseev served in the army, then founded an organization to hunt down Russian war criminals, and now has returned to the front, We’ll be interviewing him in 2023:

When the war began, this German journalist and painter contacted two people: K., a Ukrainian journalist who was born in Russia, and D., a Russian artist who opposed the invasion. He suggested that he write a short diary about his experience of the struggle. For a whole year, Nora talked to him separately every week and drew on her notes. of the results. And there are two stories brought together, week-by-week, in the life of D. Ella, who worries about the safety of those close to her while taking risks to report the war from the front. He, unlike the Putin regime, is disappointed and embarrassed by the genocide taking place in his country.

This book does not claim to be an accurate interpretation of the war. Nor, in the author’s words, does it seek to “make room for reconciliation, equate the Russian and Ukrainian experiences, victimize the Russian side, or tell the story of the “good Russian”.” Rather, the interest is in how it contrasts the perspectives of two anonymous individuals on both sides of the border: what they experienced and what they experienced, almost day after day, during the first year of the invasion, with all its complexities. felt it.