Ukraine Conflict

Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945. Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past—and anticipate in the future—in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world.

Cutting through the confusion and the media hype surrounding the infamous Russia-Ukraine conflict, this illuminating collection offers a factual, concise, and up-to-date account of the key events and figures in this rapidly unfolding war. With a play-by-play recap of the long-running tensions between these two countries and their places on the world stage, you’ll also discover how their struggle has spilled out to impact politics across the globe.

The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, subsequent war in Eastern Ukraine, and economic sanctions imposed by the West transformed European politics. The conflict did not escalate to the levels originally feared but nor was either side able to bring it to a definitive conclusion. Ukraine suffered a loss of territory but was not forced into changing its policies away from the Westward course adopted as a result of the EuroMaidan uprising of February 2014. President Putin was left supporting a separatist enclave as Russia's economy suffered significant damage.

Russia's brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has attracted widespread condemnation across the West. Government and media circles present the conflict as a simple dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim. In this concise, accessible and highly informative primer, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies insist the picture is more complicated.

What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to school across a minefield or the men who belong to groups of volunteer body collectors? In Ukraine, such questions have been part of the daily calculus of life. Greta Uehling engages with the lives of ordinary people living in and around the armed conflict over Donbas that began in 2014 and shows how conventional understandings of war are incomplete. Everyday War considers where peace can be cultivated at an everyday level.

In the early morning hours of February 24, 2022, Russia—or the Russian Federation—under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To date, though Russia has realized only limited territorial gains, the toll on human life has been extensive, with nearly 500,000 casualties and massive destruction of resources, infrastructures, and food supplies.