Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

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Russia loses the war: Putin can be removed and assassinated, his successor will surely be much worse.

This means that the book ends on more pessimistic note than is in retrospect justified. In September the Ukrainian army was pushing to recapture as much land as possible before winter set in and Europe froze under a natural gas embargo. As I read this in late January 2023 Europe hasn't frozen, wholesale gas prices have fallen and most Western nations are tripping over themselves to donate heavy weapons to Ukraine. Putin had made his official message clear in the characteristically direct and universally comprehensible way he had communicated for two decades – the language of boss–subordinate relations. At its most superficial, he had signalled that recognition of the Donbas republics was right and proper, in the collective and unanimous opinion of Russia’s top public statesmen. Subconsciously, but with equal clarity, he had also denoted who was in the inner circle, who was in the chorus, who was on the edges. And most of all, who was the ultimate boss. The two men in the hall who had the most detailed knowledge of actual events and conditions in Ukraine came in for the roughest ride. Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin’s on-the-ground point man for relations with the LDNR and Crimea, had grown up in Ukraine. After a wordy exposition where he admitted that Kyiv was not ready to re-incorporate the LDNR on the terms set out in Minsk-2, Kozak attempted a real discussion on the future of the Donbas republics. But Putin brusquely cut him off, twice. Matthews, Owen (11 October 2022). Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine. Mudlark Press. ISBN 9780008562748. Measured against this standard, and considering the circumstances under which it was produced, the book is a success. Part 1 covers the historical origins of the 2022 invasion, stretching from Kyivan Rus’ to the election of Volodymyr Zelensky as President of Ukraine in 2019. Chapter 1 (“Poisoned Roots”) is necessarily concise and touches lightly, if at all, on many of the controversies of early Russian and Ukrainian history, but Matthews does a good job emphasising the fundamental uncertainty of key issues.

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Chapter 2 (“And Moscow is Silent”) gives a brief biography of Putin that largely aligns with the conventional Western interpretation. As the Chapter title suggests, much is made of Putin’s distress at the fall of the Soviet Union (Matthews quotes Boris Reitschuster’s claim that the infamous ‘Moscow is silent’ moment is “the key to understanding Putin”) and its development into simmering anti-NATO resentment. The last part of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 summarise the history of post-USSR, pre-Zelensky Ukraine, including the Euromaidan protests and the subsequent conflict in the Donbas.

First, and foremost in the minds of Putin's entourage was the conviction that by the end of 2021 the jeopardy from Western influence in Ukraine and Russia had become too threatening to ignore - and all attempts to control it by meddling in Ukraine politics failed. Examples of the war are provided through reportage of people in actual situations. The descriptions can be quite detailed. Thinking with the Blood, ( Newsweek, 2014), a personal reportage based on a journey across war-torn Ukraine in the late summer of 2014, was published as an ebook. [9] As we near the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine the inevitable flood of books begin in earnest. Of this first draft of history Owen Matthews contribution stands head and shoulders above the rest. An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol.On 23rd February 2022, the day before the Russian invasion, the author provides short snapshots of the situation and expectations of people in various places: Moscow, Kyiv, Belgorod Russia, Moscow, Kherson Ukraine, and Oxfordshire UK, Mariupol Ukraine and Bucha Ukraine. Moscou Babylone (Les Escales, 2013), a novel based on Matthews' experiences in Moscow in the 1990s, has been published in French, [21] German [22] and Czech. It was chosen as the 'coup de coeur etranger' (favourite foreign book) at the 2013 Nancy Literary Festival, Le Livre sur la Place. [23]

I found the book fairly objective, which is a plus point. It oversimplifying to cast Ukraine as the good guys and Russians as the bad guys. Ukraine did have its issues and not everyone is blameless. Most rational people act in rational ways and Putin is no exception, although the invasion turned out to be a catastrophic blunder, and a gross misreading of the situation, he still acted as he did for a reason. That's what Overreach is all about. Those who watch the news nightly or read. daily newspapers cannot miss the events in the Ukraine since the third week of February 2022. But, how many know the characters (other than Putin and Zelensky) that were then - and area now - involved the the decisions make before Putin's invasion? An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreachtells the story not only of the war’s causes but how the first six months unfolded. Putin is totally weakened: perhaps it would be the best result for the West, the bad thing is that Russia is leaving more and more of the international concert and this is bad for the world in general and especially for the Russians.

In his Pushkin House Book Prize-nominated “Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine,” Owen Matthews explores the sources of this monumental miscalculation. Resistance and Repression – Propaganda – Sanctions – Exodus: The Russians – Exodus: The Ukrainians. Rough edges and a weaker third act do not prevent Overreach from achieving its aims. It is timely, compelling and arguably more perceptive than could reasonably be expected so soon. It is strongly recommended, especially for readers who have been following the war since February 2022, or who have some prior knowledge of Putin or Russian politics. Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love and War (Bloomsbury, 2008), a memoir of three generations of Matthews' family in Russia, was named as a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph. [11] [12], shortlisted for The Guardian First Books Award, [13] The Orwell Prize, [14] and France's Prix Medicis Etranger. [15] Stalin's Children was translated into 28 languages.