Putin goes crazy, doing worse things and aggravating the conflict with worse consequences worldwide. A good, well written book. My only reservation is this: if you are interested in Ukraine, read a decent paper each day and maybe listen to or watch programmes or Podcasts about the Russian invasion, almost all of the content will be broadly familiar to you. So claims that it is "astonishing" or in some way revelatory are overdone. Matthews has, therefore, set himself a difficult task by seeking to write “a first draft of the history of how the war began – and how the conflict moved from Russia’s blitzkrieg through stalemate to Ukrainian counter-offensive.” The focus of the book is what Matthews describes as “the most compelling mystery at the heart of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine…what was the true reason that Putin decided to go to war?” It paints Putin (and rightly so IMO) as a power-hungry, war mongering dictator hellbent on destroying not only Ukraine but his own country as well to restore the USSR. 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.

Drawing on over 25 years’ experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the Covid bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky.His inner clique, it seems, knew the war would isolate Moscow internationally, but figured it was still worth it. By turning Russia into somewhere that no liberal wanted to live, they could ensure power passed to their own children, many of whom already hold top government jobs. A country where millions died in socialism’s name now resembles the hereditary Tsarist aristocracy before it. To survive and be happy, Russians have so much to bury, to willfully ignore. Small wonder that the intensity of their pleasures and indulgences is so sharp; it has to match the quality of their suffering.”

The author briefly goes over some key battles such as the one for the Hostomel airport. However, there are few details about other major battles such as the siege of Mariupol and Azovstal. The war crimes at Bucha are covered in more detail including the story of the young Russian soldier that committed war crimes and was subsequently captured and sentenced to life in prison. Various actors in the war such as the foreign volunteers, the Chechens, the Wagner mercenaries are each discussed in turn.Testimonies of captured Russian conscripts, Ukrainian civilians who escaped from occupation, and of the last journalists in besieged Mariupol tell the story of the war as it unfolded on the ground. Matthews’ interviews with men who launched Putin’s career, and others who have worked with him for years, help the reader to understand Putin’s motivations and to get inside the head of the world’s most secretive and dangerous leader. The author details the development of Russian nationalist attitudes from the fall of the Soviet Union and up the invasion. He also gives a detailed account of many of the idealogues that introduced Putin to Russian Ultranationalism and Fascism, in addition to figures in his inner circle. The portraits painted of figures such as Nikolai Patruschev are in particular quite chilling, being if anything more steeped in paranoia and conspiracy theory thinking. Patruschev is also thought to have been behind the planning and execution of both the Litvinenko assassination and the attempted assassinations of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. A respected journalist draws on deep knowledge to explain the thinking behind Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 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. The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage.

The use of second-hand sources, though, is the only way to provide a proper overview: in a war this big, no reporter can be everywhere. And besides, much of this book’s value is in exploring the war’s deeper roots. What I admire most about the author’s writing in this book is it’s remarkable frankness. He does not try to achieve fake “balance” by making the Ukrainian Government sound as bad as the Russian Government. But what all sides overlook and their genuine mistakes are on full display and are carefully and shrewdly observed. Overreach คลี่คลายคำถามข้างต้นและคำถามอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับต้นตอของสงครามอย่างน่าสนใจ ผ่านการย่อยข้อมูลมหาศาลและการสัมภาษณ์คนหลายร้อยคนทั้งในและนอกเครมลิน กระบวนการได้มาซึ่งข้อมูลของผู้เขียนก็น่าติดตามไม่แพ้เส้นเรื่องหลัก ทหารรัสเซียหลายคนให้การหลังจากที่ตกเป็นเชลย บางคนยอมให้ข้อมูลแบบนิรนาม ต้องนัดพบกันในสวนสาธารณะตามเวลาที่กำหนด คนสนิทของปูตินหลายคนยอมให้ข้อมูลแต่ระวังตัวแจ ชาวรัสเซียจำนวนมากที่รักชาติแต่ไม่รักปูตินอยากให้โลกรู้ว่าพวกเขาคิดอะไร As with all books published in the midst of war this book is already somewhat out of date. Matthews records events up to the end of September 2022. So the Kharkiv offensive of that month is covered but the Russian retreat from Kherson is not. Nor is the Russian offensive around Bakhmut in the winter of 22/23. However, written by someone with a deep understanding of Russia (he speaks Russian, lived there for many years and is married to a Russian) it does provide a more nuanced perspective than one usually finds in our media and a better analysis of events.

HarperCollins has acquired World All Language rights to the new book by veteran Moscow correspondent and historian Owen Matthews. Mudlark Publishing Director Joel Simons negotiated the deal with Northbank’s Diane Banks and Martin Redfern. Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin ’ s War Against Ukraine will be published on 10 November 2022. Interesting and well-written book for those who have not observed Russia or Ukraine closely. If you have, this is mainly a repetition of main events without very much new light shed. Owen Matthews 'Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America' ". Pushkin House. 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. [10] [11], shortlisted for The Guardian First Books Award, [12] The Orwell Prize, [13] and France's Prix Medicis Etranger. [14] Stalin's Children was translated into 28 languages. Matthews, Owen (11 October 2022). Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine. Mudlark Press. ISBN 9780008562748.

Matthews’ focus on the major Russian non-Putin characters makes Chapter 4 and 5 the best and most interesting parts of the book. Matthews describes Surkov as “the most paradoxical and fascinating figure ever to have worked in Putin’s Kremlin”, and makes his case well. The portrait of Patrushev is also helpful for introducing readers to an essential figure in Russia’s recent past, the current war, and possibly the future too. The first section of Chapter 5 deserves a book of its own (perhaps by Matthews, perhaps by Mark Galeotti, whose work Matthews draws on) charting the long, agonising decline of the so-called “liberals” in the Kremlin, from Yegor Gaidar to Surkov, as they consistently failed to deliver the results that successive Russian leaders wanted. Matthews, Owen (28 August 2008). "Stalin's Children by Owen Matthews". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 24 May 2023. L'Ombre du Sabre (Les Escales, 2016) A novel inspired by the author's own experiences as a reporter in Chechnya in the 1990s and in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 [23] Dining With the Author: Dangerous Misadventures With Owen Matthews". HuffPost. 28 April 2014 . Retrieved 5 June 2015.An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol. True, this is not a classic war reporter’s tale of frontline action. Some of Matthews’s accounts of key battles, for example, are not first-hand but recreated through interviews and cuttings. In recounting how Kremlin troops were woefully ill-prepared, for example, he draws on testimony to a Ukrainian war crimes court by a young Russian squaddie who pleaded guilty to shooting a civilian after his armoured convoy was ambushed.