I think that one of the greatest mistakes in 20th century was creation of big multinational states, countries crammed with the nations that actually do not like each other. This was situation in Austria-Hungary, former Yugoslavia but also in myriad states that became independent after fall of USSR, Ukraine being one of them.

What happens in that case is that [original supra] state they were part of needs to be muddied, demonized and fast forgotten, not taking into account everything that same state did for that very nation. So old hatreds boil and old ideologies start to surface and everyone marked as an enemy is to be targeted. As a result states become polarized and when fuse gets lightened everything goes to sewer.

This is what happened in Ukraine - rise of nationalism brought back certain ideologies that just had to find the target, and behold the eternal baddies - Russians. Does it matter that post 1990s Russia is more similar to Tsarist Russia, they are blamed for everything, starting it seems from the Biblical flood.

And as every action triggers the reaction, Russians in the south-east Ukraine started to organize because they realized they will no longer be equal citizens in their own country.

Acquiring the Crimea was definitely an initial strategic requirement. Reason, simple - access to the Black Sea. Idiotic statements of Ukrainian government about Crimea triggered fear of NATO base here, and nobody could allow that. In my opinion, same reason applies when it comes to South Osettia.

Unfortunately this gave confidence to Donetsk and Lugansk rebels to ask for more authonomy because they thought Russia will intervene. And this is where the story starts.

In a manner of 7 samurai, group of volunteers arrives in Donetsk and when selecting the city for their base of operations decision is made to start in Slavyansk. What follows is set of engagements that slowly escalated from small scale engagements to merciless bombardment of Slavyansk and great number of civilian casualties, culminating in armed rebels escaping from the besieged city. Considering that story mentions a lot of characters that are still active in current war, it helps to build the context and backstory of the conflict (and relations between mentioned characters).

While story is told from the Russian perspective, I cannot imagine any modern western author writing book this balanced. Ukrainians are armed opposition here, and all of the information about them in given through pretty neutral reports from the field and less neutral statements Ukrainians gave to press (including resettlement plans when Slavyansk fails or threats of sabotage and terror attacks deep behind rebel positions and Crimea). There are no overtly emotional statements nor demonizations. Author manages, and in my opinion succeeds, to give the picture of the Slavyansk fighting from both warring sides. While describing attrocities in Odessa, author also gives picture of almost schizophrenic government parallel structures in rebel territory (i.e police and governer still working for official Kiev).

Author is also critical of the Russain Federation [lack of] official support for the rebels. I think that Russia wanted to stop after securing the Black Sea access, and their constant hot-cold relation with Ukraine and west allowed them to wait as much as possible to intervene. Today we know, unfortunately by statements of official Germany and France, that none of the agreements with Russia were meant to be followed through. Way was paved towards the war that errupted in 2022.

All of this mayhem is what can be expected in civil war in a country where single nation feels empowered to subdue the other nations present. Encouragment given from the west certainly did not help, it just raised the temperature and escalated things.

To one of the reviewers speaking about west thankfully being homogenic in people structure and not that interested about national identity - take a look at Belgium and imagine if they forbid French as official language, or take a look at France and conflicts along the national lines that are burning down French cities - although most of those people come from Africa they all have French citizenships.

Every country where you have a pot of various nations, also known as multinational countries, is a ticking bomb. You want to destabilize them? Just place various NGOs to awaken old memories and that is it. Ask every multinational, federal type of state east of Italy, Czechoslovakia being the rare example of amicable "divorce". And in general, as for nationalities, all's good and everyone is citizen of the world until help is required - suddenly everyone remembers their embassies (especially Northern Americans).

Current events confirm some of the elements of the story - increasing hatred between opponents (especially Ukrainian hatred towards everything Russian and by the looks of it plan to either resettle population of Donetsk and Lugansk or push them all the way to Russia), Ukrainian employment of mercenaries from NATO countries (US and Poland in particular) and their reliance on terror and assassination tactics (especially use of bombs).

Book also shows how politically motivated border drawing - in case of Ukraine, very creation of its borders in 1920s by Soviet government or drawing nebulous borders by English and French in Middle East - always results in tragedy years later.

Question arises, did Russians had right to rebel? Well, to that I have a following question - how do you feel about Alamo, or Greece fight for independance from Ottoman Empire, Dutch indenpendence war, US independence struggle, Cossacks fighting the Poles (yup, same Ukraine, while was under Poles) and say Baltic states' fights for independence after WW1 or states declaring independence from Yugoslav Federation? I understand that some might say, we are right because we support our cause but they dont have right to do that! In that case hypocrisy is name of the game, that needs to be looked at. And I will stop at that.

Very interesting and exquisitly balanced account of the events. Highly recommended to everyone interested in the history and in Russian-Ukrainian relations and conflicts. ( )