War in Ukraine: the best books about the conflict’s background
The essential reading list to understand the history behind the war

“The first book on anyone’s reading list should be Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,” said Edward Lucas in The Times. An exploration of Nazi and Soviet atrocities in the “bloodlands” of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus during the 1930s and 1940s, it’s the “best rebuttal to Putin’s Soviet-centred, cod-imperialist approach to the past”, displayed in his speeches and the “rambling essay” he published last year. Complementing it is Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine: Stalin’s War in Ukraine, an account of Stalin’s mass-starvation programme in Ukraine. “Only by understanding Ukraine’s historical trauma at Russian hands can Western readers begin to appreciate the depth of the country’s desire for peace and sovereignty.” For a fuller account of Ukraine’s history, Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine is “masterly”. It explains why the “flawed” belief that Ukraine isn’t a real nation is so important to Russian nationalists.
Even so, it’s important to remember that Russia and Ukraine do “share much of their history”, said Orlando Figes in The Observer. Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard’s The Emergence of Rus 750-1200 is a scholarly guide to their common origins, in the “loose medieval state founded by the Vikings on the river routes between the Baltic and the Black Sea”. A number of fiction writers have also explored the two countries’ “shared culture”, said Oliver Bullough in The Guardian. To my mind, none have done so more successfully than Nikolai Gogol, especially in his short stories. “Raised in Ukraine, discovered in Russia, adored in both, Gogol conjures up the absurdity of life under autocracy better than anyone.” To understand Russia’s current autocracy, though, the “essential book” is Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People. It tells the inside story of how Putin “built a nuclear-armed mafia state”.
As the current conflict is reminding us, urban warfare can be “uniquely brutalising”, said Saul David in The Times. The siege tactics used by the Russians have even led to suggestions that Ukraine could witness a “new Stalingrad”. To understand those words, “read Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad, the classic account of Hitler’s failed attempt to capture the city on the Volga in the Second World War, which resulted in two million deaths”. Another conflict with echoes today is Russia’s second war against Chechnya, fought from 1999 to 2009. “Two excellent eye-witness accounts” of the “ruthless tactics” used by Putin, which reduced Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, to rubble, are Thomas Goltz’s Chechnya Diary and A Dirty War by the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Film reviews: Roofman and Kiss of the Spider Woman
Feature An escaped felon’s heart threatens to give him away and a prisoner escapes into daydreams of J.Lo.
-
Broadway actors and musicians are on the brink of a strike
The explainer The show, it turns out, may not go on
-
Pentagon reporters turn in badges after refusing rules
Speed Read They refused to sign a restrictive new press policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
-
Film reviews: Roofman and Kiss of the Spider Woman
Feature An escaped felon’s heart threatens to give him away and a prisoner escapes into daydreams of J.Lo.
-
Cyrano de Bergerac: a ‘huge-hearted’ production
The Week Recommends This ‘playful’ and ‘poignant’ rendition brings new life to the ‘gilet-sporting, verse-spouting’ titular soldier
-
I Swear: a ‘warm-hearted’ comedy-drama
The Week Recommends While ‘inescapably hilarious’, the drama also lifts the lid on John Davidson’s experiences with Tourette syndrome
-
Victoria Beckham Netflix documentary feels like an ‘advert’
Talking Point Carefully controlled three-part show fails to answer the interesting questions it raises
-
What to read by Nobel Prize in Literature winner László Krasznahorkai
In the Spotlight The Hungarian writer’s melodic prose is ‘quite unlike anyone else’s’
-
Nathan Harris’ 6 favorite books that turn adventures into revelations
Feature The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McGuire, and more
-
Book reviews: ‘Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What We Can Do About It’ and ‘It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin’
Feature How big tech is betraying its users and how Jane Birkin’s allure led her to struggle with her own self-worth
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly Cooper
In the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’