8 Books You Must Read To Know More About The Russia Ukraine Conflict

WiseReads
5 min readFeb 25, 2022

I am pretty sure that you would be amazed at how little you knew about this alleged precursor of World War 3.

Paul D’Anieri’s Ukraine and Russia — From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War
  1. Ukraine and RussiaPaul D’ Anieri

Paul D’ Anieri’s book Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War explores a series of dynamics arising from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the conflict between the Ukraine and Russia, and the conflict between Russian and Western nations that led to war in 2014. In chronological order, this book reveals how Ukraine’s separation from Russia in 1991, then called as a ‘civilized divorce’ at the time, resulted in what many have dubbed as the “new Cold War.” D’ Anieri then goes on to share the three basic reasons he believe has made the conflict worsened — the security dilemma, the effect of democratization on geopolitics, and the incompatibility of post-Cold War European objectives.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3IjSD0g

2. The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know Serhy Yekelchyk

This book examines Ukraine’s current conflict and its long history of ethnic identity while interweaving questions of the country’s troubling relations with its former imperial master, Russia. Yekelchyk, in this incisive and concise book, describes the current crisis in Ukraine, as well as its ethnic composition and national identity. He also explains it’s history of becoming a sovereign nation and communism’s aftereffects, the Orange Revolution, the EuroMaidan, the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, the war in the Donbas, and the efforts of the West to broker peace.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3LYrdPL

Yuri Kostenko’s Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies)

3. Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies) Yuri Kostenko

In December 1994 Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal which was world’s third largest in size at that time and signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, after receiving assurances that its sovereignty would be respected and protected by Russia, the U.S., and the UK. Yuri Kostenko’s detailed account of the negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, and the US is based on original and previously unavailable documents, and reveals for the first time the internal debates of the Ukrainian government as well as the pressure exerted upon it by its international partners.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3BNPsvo

Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals (Ukrainian Voices)

4. Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals (Ukrainian Voices)

This book features essays from contemporary Ukrainian writers, historians, philosophers, political analysts, and opinion leaders combine reflections on Ukraine’s history — or history — and analyses of the present with conceptual ideas and personal anecdotes. Their book presents multiple views of Ukrainian memory and reality, ranging from the Holodomor to the Maidan, from Russian aggression to cultural diversity, and from the depth of the past to the complexity of the present.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3vdjU0N

The Orphanage: A Novel by Serhiy Zhadan

5. The Orphanage: A Novel — Serhiy Zhadan

There is something heartbreaking about the novel The Orphanage, which examines the undeniable human collateral damage of the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. As hostile soldiers invade a neighboring city, Pasha, a 35-year-old Ukrainian language teacher, sets out for the orphanage that houses his nephew Sasha, which is now under occupation. In an increasingly desperate attempt to rescue Sasha, Pasha ventures into conflict zones, crosses shifting borders, and forges alliances with uneasy allies.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3pfl7B4

Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine

6. Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine — Anne Applebaum

Stalin launched his agricultural collectivization policy in 1929, which effectively amounted to a second Russian Revolution, pushing millions of peasants off their land into collective farms. A devastating famine resulted, the most lethal in European history. Five million people died in the USSR between 1931 and 1933.However, instead of sending relief, the Soviet state used the disaster to solve a political problem. More than three million of those who died in the Red Famine were Ukrainians who were deliberately killed, not by a bad policy, but by the state itself.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3BQXAvc

Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

7. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and StalinTimothy Snyder

While Americans call the Second World War ‘The Good War,’ Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens before the war began — and continued to do so during and after the war. Hitler had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans before he was finally defeated. At war’s end, both the German and Soviet killing fields fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness. Bloodlands presents Europe’s mass murders in two different perspectives, as two aspects of one history: between Germany and Russia at the time when both Hitler and Stalin ruled.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3hxAzUV

Through Times of Trouble: Conflict in Southeastern Ukraine Explained from Within by Anna Matveeva

8. Through Times of Trouble: Conflict in Southeastern Ukraine Explained from WithinAnna Matveeva

The book tells the story of insurrection in the Ukraine’s Donbas region as seen through the rebels’ perspective, who sought and still seek either independence from Ukraine or unification with Russia. Hence, it offers a unique insight into their thinking and motivations, which are crucial for resolving conflict. In the story, the combatants themselves are spoken by those who make and remake the conflict.

Get this book here — https://amzn.to/3hla6te

P.S. Some of the links in this article maybe affiliate links which helps pay a little for the work I do in creating amazing content for my readers. I hope you don’t mind using these links to make your purchase :)

Thanks for reading!

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