Serhii Plokhy, The Russo-Ukrainian War.

                                               

- If you want to dig deep into the Ukraine-Russia war then this just published book is a must read. It is exceptionally good. The author is a Ukrainian-American professor of history at Harvard University and widely regarded as the world's foremost historian of Ukraine. 

- Written between March 2022 and February 2023, it is comprehensive and full of detail, and delves into the centuries-long history of the often turbulent, often peaceful, relationship between the two countries. 

- Generally speaking it is pro-Ukraine, pro-Zelensky, and pro-West, but it is also sympathetic to Russia's grievances when justified. It places the current confrontation in a deep historical context, making Zelensky's and Putin's positions clear and rational. 

- During the long cold war period of the USSR the relationship between the two largest and most important republics, Russia and Ukraine, were critical to the economies and social cohesion of both. But when the USSR and the Communist Party collapsed under Gorbachev, and Russia's brief experiment with democracy ended under Yeltsin, the tensions with Ukraine were inflamed. It was clear that the Ukrainian people were passionate about preserving their independent democratic state. It began pushing for NATO membership from the early 2000’s on, and Putin continually expressed concern. 'Moscow considered Ukrainian membership in NATO a breach of good relations with Russia...while it would not dare attack NATO, it could easily attack its aspirants (like Georgia and Ukraine) and it did so’. 

- The book delves deep into the Minsk Agreements. Zelensky and Putin remained fundamentally at odds. Zelensky ‘vacillated on the issue of the implementation of the constitutional reforms envisioned by Putin. The reforms would have given the Donbas special status and turned it into a Russian enclave if the Russians had been allowed to take charge of the elections. Zelensky faced…difficulties when in October he agreed to the formula endorsed by Russia, Germany and France for the reintegration of Donbas. Almost immediately, mass protests erupted all over Ukraine under the slogan ‘No to the capitulation’. Looking for a way out of a difficult situation Zelensky said ‘no’ to Putin in Paris. Now he had nowhere to go but west and no door to knock on but that of NATO’. 

- There was huge support (93%) by the people of Ukraine for Zelensky’s resistance.

- Putin, on the other hand, 'was the victim of his own delusions, historical and otherwise, and his troops became victims of his propaganda efforts’. 

- The massive sanctions enacted by the US, the EU, and many Asian states, particularly against its substantial gas exports, began to bring serious economic destruction to the Russian economy. Merkel’s contrasting view - encouraging economic cooperation with Russia - was seen as appeasement of an aggressor, and the new Chancellor Scholz reversed it. 

- France's Macron and Italy's Mario Draghi, favouring diplomacy, tried to broker a deal between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, but Zelensky, expressing the mindset and committment of the Ukrainian people, rejected that notion as favouring Russia. Washington welcomed the plan but Russia mocked it. It wasn't long before the European leaders backtracked. 

- The Afterword at the end of the book is a superb reflection of how this war will end:

The Russo-Ukrainian War has become the latest military conflict in the long history of wars of national liberation, which can be traced back to the American Revolution. It also belongs in the long list of wars that accompanied the decline and disintegration of world empires from the Spanish to the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian, and then from the British and French to the Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese. We know how those wars ended - with the sovereignty of former colonies and dependencies and the concomitant devolution of former empires into post-imperial nation-states.