The Russo-Ukrainian War

This Eastern-European conflict has been going on for more than 2 years now, unfortunately. It grieves me that there is such a loss of life in a cultural region that my ethnic backgrounds harks backs to. While I may have a superficial and biased opinion on who I support, I felt my support was lacking. For the Ukrainian people’s sake, I felt it necessary to understand the historical context to the situation and gain a deeper understanding of how and why this conflict emerged, to know what led to the pain they are currently suffering through. I also wanted to know more personally, as recently I’ve become more engrossed in reading about history.

Through a few chapters, we are guided through a brief yet detailed history of the founding of Ukraine and Russia, both coming from the Kingdom of Kievan Rus. I had tried to read another book about the history of Ukraine a while ago, but it proved to be very lengthy and a bit dry, not entirely unexpected for a complete history - this on the other hand engaged me throughout its whole length.

The author explains many reasons as to why many Russian elites lay claim to Ukraine and how these myths started and evolved when the Kingdom of Muscovy broke away from Kievan Rus. Becoming cognizant of these claims and their explanations, it in turn explained a great deal about the ethos of both countries and how this has influenced their relationship through time.

But once we finish the first few chapters based in medieval and imperialist history, we are brought into the retelling of the recent history of the countries in greater detail, taking up a majority of the book, accurate to the title. I was aware of the Orange protests of 2004, the Maidan protests and the subsequent invasion of 2014, but the chapters dedicated to these protests allowed me to really get the bigger picture of what was going on. I am interested in the relationships between things and how that all influences the greater story at hand - at this point, I was slowly integrating and seeing the political, cultural, and religious facets that had driven where history had laid down its path.

With this knowledge in mind, I was able to read along and better grasp what led to the invasion of 2022. Extreme detail of the absolute malfeasance and deviousness contrasted with the bravery and fortitude of the people; the war hit me harder than I had experienced before. Well-researched and minutia-laden, I was grasping the dire situation at hand and was amazed at the amount of information left out from the general public, although that is to be expected of any topic one dives into.

As I finished the book voraciously, in the back of my mind I wanted to read more, but at the forefront, I realized that this book shouldn’t keep going, it shouldn’t have needed to be written in the first place. But here we are, reality threading fate as it pleases, and while we are here, we might as well try to make sense of the chaos of the world. Thus the author has condensed and explained the chaos that is churning inside of Ukraine currently. The voices of the people need to be heard everywhere, and in this particular instance in this slice of the world, the author has done a great job expressing the happenings and the feelings of the Ukrainian people. It did a great job introducing the history of both countries as it relates to one another and expounding on the political rigamarole between them.

My faith in Ukraine has only been strengthened. A very good book, I will give it a 4.5 out of 5. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a better grasp of what is still going on.