The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy

The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History Reviews

• 
  Paul Bryant

  This book is in two halves, before 22 February 2022 and after. I needed the first part (but not the second) because after all the millions of words spouted forth by the journalists and professors, still my brain could not quite grasp exactly why Putin decided to roll his tanks.
  
  There was a belief in Tsarist times and Soviet times that there were three Russian peoples, the Great Russians, the Little Russians (Ukraine) and the White Russians (Belarus). During the Empire and then the USSR the borders were really quite notional, it was kind of a case of what’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours, one big happy family.
  
  But gradually there arose a belief that there was such a thing as a separate Ukrainian nation. Putin has written about this – he blames Polish intellectuals in the 19th century. And this was done deliberately by “the west”, according to Putin’s view, in order to erect “a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia”.
  
  Well a barrier is one thing, but a springboard is a whole other thing. Putin might not mind a barrier but when the Ukrainian constitution was changed on 7 February 2019 to include the strategic objectives of joining the EU and NATO, then for Putin the barrier was now very clearly becoming a springboard.
  
  But I still don’t quite get it – does Putin think that if Ukraine was part of NATO there would be suddenly a military threat to Russia that wasn’t there before? Existing NATO states Latvia and Estonia already border Russia since 2004. And we all know that NATO cannot get into any direct confrontation with Russia without provoking WWIII. (Whilst at the same time noting that this is now a proxy war.)
  
  There is a psychological/cultural/historical component to this conflict – it’s personal. And this must be why some essential thing about this terrible situation still eludes me. One thing this book told me is that Ukrainians and their politicians themselves have been dreadfully conflicted about the orientation of their own country – towards Russia or towards the West. And there have been two revolutions (Orange 2005, Maidan 2014), leading to the question when is a revolution a coup?
  
  I may say this book is a grand one for finding problems of definition – what is an annexation? What is a valid referendum? What is an independent republic? What is democracy?
  
  I appreciated Professor Plokhy’s carefully colourless account of a dreadfully tangled, complex history. But Putin’s war still seems - to put it mildly – a gross, reckless, weird miscalculation.
• 
  Henri

  This book is very much on why rather than what and how.
  
  When I first saw this book announced I thought, well that’s rather than foolish isn’t it. Plokhy is one of the best English language historians of Ukraine - why would he attempt a history of the war that hasn’t yer completed- surely it can be done via a reportage medium rather than a book. I was wrong in my assumption that this would be the chronicle of the war. Well it is, for a small part a chronicle of the key events of the war. Mostly though, this is an explainer to how we got there. Starting in late 1980s Plokhy charts the fall of the Soviet Union and then tracks the developments of the Russian and Ukrainian state (side by side in chapters for easy of comparison (something tell me the comparison in the mind of the reader is intended)). This is done meticulously yet concisely all the way up to Feb 24 2023. Understandably by the time of book’s release a lot will happen that author just cannot cover. Plokhy concludes with a short chapter discussing the world order and how it has been shaped by the war.
  
  Overall if you want a general history of the war or description of the fighting from the trenches you won’t find those in this book. If you want to understand why the war is fought in the first place - why the Russians attacked, why they keep on going, and why Ukraine is so united in fighting back -this is the book for you.
  Thank you to Penguin for a very early reading copy.
• 
  Agnė

  I am biased with my rating.
  A good informative narration of Russia's war against Ukraine which is insightful and summarizes the most important points of countries' histories, war progress as well as covers Europe, USA and China's approaches and views on the war.
  I cannot say that I learned a lot from this book as I am following the war on a daily basis, however, the book establishes a good ground for someone who wants to know that the war is about, why Russia is so agressive and why Ukraine is fighting this war and, most importantly, why Ukraine is winning.
• 
  Jonfaith

  I found this interesting if uneven, which is probably to be expected. It is a first draft of history. Ploky's work dovetails nicely with
  The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America and I found some tangents intriguing, especially the attention given to Boris Yeltsin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
  
  Ploky is interested in events and precedents, not ideas. I think this would have benefitted from more of the latter. His notion that the war had thwarted Putin's cherished goal of a multipolar matrix was rather arresting. Putin’s actions solidified the idea of G2.
• 
  Todd

  If journalism is the first rough draft of history, this book attempts to be the second for the War in Ukraine. It was published in May 2023 and covers events from February 2022 through March 2023 with digressions through feudal history, Soviet history, and the Russian invasions of Georgia and the Crimea. Between various chapters, Plokhy the author modulates between taking the long view and zooming all the way in for the blow by blow in the battlefield. The heart of the book really synthesizes much of the reporting that was first told in 2014 and 2022. It's definitely a balancing act to strike the right mix between history, events, and analysis. This book has an adequate mix of content at the various levels. Since the reporting from the mainstream media has been pretty thorough, we probably could have used less reporting and more mid range analysis. Also, at times you can feel Plokhy putting his finger on the scale. With more time and space those shortcomings could have been smoothed out. Ultimately, eggs have to be cracked to make an omelet. No one says writing a rough draft to history is easy, especially as events are still unfolding. This was a decent to solid effort at one such draft.
• 
  Martin

  This is the best book you’re going to read on the origins and the first year of the war. At least until Russia opens their archives. Which is to say that it sets the standard for the foreseeable future. And the afterword alone is worth the price of admission
• 
  Blair

  “The Russo Ukrainian War” is a book that provides a historical context, and reviews the status of this conflict, up until March 2023.
  
  It’s a story about why Russian invaded Ukraine (e.g., Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea to the Ukraine in 1954, not all Russians agreed with this and they wanted it back) how the Ukrainian people have pulled together since the annexation of Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and 2015, and it outlines the course the war has taken up until the end of the first quarter of this year.
  
  I liked this book very much because it pulled together all the various strands of thinking I had about Ukraine – starting with the role its independence played in breaking up the Soviet Union in 1991, to the Orange Revolution in 2004, the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the recent battles and Ukraine’s sinking of the Moskva – the pride of Russia Black Sea Fleet - to the destruction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait into Crimea by the Ukrainians.
  
  I’ve always found it surprising how quickly big events disappear from our consciousness and lose their relevance. I had forgotten about the Russian atrocities at Bucha, even though they happened only one short year ago. This book brought it back to light.
  
  I also liked the geopolitical perspective the author included in how this conflict efforts the countries that border Ukraine and especially Poland and Turkey. The author’s insight that Ukraine’s neighbours, who are concerned about an aggressive Russia, wanted it to fight Russia. In return they would look after the millions of Ukrainian women and children who fled the country. I found this very interesting because it provided a different perspective that we see from the Western media. (Page 175.)
  
  Further the author covers how this war will likely result not in the return of a bipolar world that features America and Russia, but one that features America and China.
  
  I’m an open advocate for Ukraine and have no big quarrel with this book. That said, I think the book could have outlined a little bit more about Russia’s position. It felt threatened by NATO and a successful democracy next to it.
  
  Putin has not been doing well at home and needed a diversion to solidify his position. The West had invited the Baltic States, Georgia, and Ukraine to join NATO, Russia’s arch enemy, and there is no geographic separation between these states and Russia. Did the West push too hard and was this necessary?
  
  I think the Western powers goaded Russia and share some of the responsibility for starting this conflict. The West was keen to take out the many nuclear weapons in Ukraine in the 1990's after the collapse of the Soviet Union. While this made the world a safer place overall it also left Ukraine vulnerable to attack. While this was covered by the author, I think he could have taken more print to present Putin’s viewpoint – whether he agrees with it or not.
  
  That said, I want to be clear that I don't agree with Putin's point of view but at the same time I want to understand it.
  
  I also felt that the book was a little difficult to get into at first. Perhaps the author should have reworked the early chapters in this otherwise excellent book.
• 
  Sean

  Plokhy is a Ukrainian who had family members inside of Ukraine when the invasion started; nevertheless, he manages to remain unemotional and calm in his analysis of this horrible situation. His basic argument is that behind all this hullaballo, the current conflict is really just an old-fashioned imperial war, much in the same tradition as the ones found during Soviet times and the Russian Empire before that. Nothing new under the sun.
  
  Ukraine has always been an integral part of Russian imperial ambitions and it remains so today. Putin demands that Ukraine be under Russia's sphere of influence. That Ukraine and the Ukrainians themselves may want to follow a different path is simply intolerable to him.
  
  Although the author does touch on the war itself, this book is more about explaining the history that led to it and ideologies behind it.
• 
  Marks54

  The author wrote a good political history of Ukraine a few years back and is the perfect author to come up with a history of the war up to the wait for the new Ukrainian offensive to be unleashed. He writes well and does an excellent job of tying together the myriad stories about the war that are presented in media coverage. What is especially good about the book is how the current war with Russia did not come out of the blue but was instead very much “on the table” and a potential development by Putin since the early 2010s, even though few in American thought that it would occur. This is a well written and timely book. I agree with commentators who expect that once the new offensive occurs producing a new face of the war, that we can only hope that Mr. Plokhy will write about it.
• 
  Simonas

  Apie dabartinę Rusijos invaziją į Ukrainą dar daug knygų bus parašyta, o dabar pradeda rastis ir jau parašytos dar karo metu. Sergyi Plokhy turbūt labiausiai išgarsėjo, kuomet prasidėjus karui visi ėmė skaityti "Gates of Europe" - bene geriausiai parašyta angliškai Ukrainos istoriją. Dabar jis sudėjo ir knygą apie šį karą: aišku, kad matosi noras užšokti "ant bangos", kuomet dar laisva niša. Natūralu, jog daugiausia skiriama kontekstui, o ne eigai - nėra daug naujų man negirdėtų faktų, bet kai taip sudedi viską į krūvą, tai visiškai jausmas kaip prieš WW2: "ej, kaip mes nepastebėjom, jog seniai buvo akivaizdu kad Putinas tą darys". bl***.
• 
  Greg

  Brilliant book. Everything you need to know about the current Russo-Ukrainian War in one relatively short and very easy to read book by an author who knows what he is talking about.
  
  I am very impressed that fully half the book is devoted to the background of the war and includes a potted history of Russia and the Ukraine and their language/culture/religion which is so important to understanding the war - at least for those of us who who don't live in the area and had little prior knowledge of the issues.
  
  If you are only interested in the military side of the conflict you might be better off looking elsewhere. This book is for those readers who want to really understand the issues.
• 
  Michael Samerdyke

  A good background to and summary of the first year of the current conflict.
  
  I was interested to see that Plokhy noted the role of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as a support for Zelensky in the war and observed that some of Zelensky's supporters had gone to the Russian side.
  
  Clearly, a fuller account of this war will be written someday, but for the present this is a good place for the average American reader to find a summary of the situation.
• 
  Harald Groven

  First half of the book is an excellent historical account and explanation of the events leading up to the 2022 invasion from the most merited Ukrainian historian internationally. The second half is more a synopsis of the media coverage of the military campaign and international political development.
• 
  Yar Haluk

  A thoroughly engrossing look at the Russian war on Ukraine. The lead up to the war is put into historical context and the war itself is covered in depth. Interestingly, the partnership between Russia and China, its' possible future, and how this could affect the war in Ukraine as well as the rest of the world is also dealt with.
• 
  Susu

  A historical summary of Russia's war of aggression - from Russian imperialism, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the political wheelings and dealings leading to war, including a summary of the first year of it - deeply informative and an important read
• 
  Slava Drozd

  Easily the best modern history book I've read in a long long time. So many facts my heads spinned. I listened this book on Audible and narration is just superb! It's writing at it's best in all the ways, highly recommend and I immediately want to read more of Serhii Plokhy's.
• 
  Dale

  This is a great snap shot of the current state of affairs in Ukraine. A timely book that captures the run up from the Cold War to 2023.
• 
  Marko

  Slava Ukrajini
• 
  Kalle Kniivilä

  Too much chronology, too little analysis.
• 
  Ceil

  Fantastic reminder of the decades (centuries) of Ukraine - Russian conflict that preceded the current conflict, along with a nuanced discussion of the current conflict.