A year ago today, Russia launched its “military operation” in Ukraine which has not only caused ongoing suffering to the Ukrainian people but has also turned global politics upside-down. Since then, many books have been written about Russia’s war on Ukraine. From the personal accounts of a young Ukrainian girl, journalists on the ground, and soldiers to insightful analyses compiled by experts, this month’s book bundle provides diverse and outstanding sources of information to understand and summarize the important milestones and dynamics leading to and occurring during the war as well as its devastating effects on the world.

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ussia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine saw confrontation between Moscow and the West spill over into open conflict once again. Hostile acts abroad, from poisoning dissidents to shooting down airliners, interfering in elections, spying, hacking, and murdering, have long seemed to be the Kremlin’s dealings. But what is it all for?

Keir Giles, who works as a senior research fellow at the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, explains how and why Russia pushes for more power and influence wherever it can reach, beyond Ukraine; what this means not just for governments, but for ordinary people across the globe; and how its effects may be more damaging than we realize.

Keir Giles, Russia’s War on Everybody and What It Means for You (Bloomsbury Academic 2023) ISBN: 9781350255081, 264 pages

R ussia’s brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has attracted widespread condemnation across the world. Government and media circles present the conflict as a simple dichotomy of good and evil. War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict brings together a balanced look at the events leading up to the conflict and surveys the different parties involved.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies show how the picture is more complicated. While recognizing that Russia’s aggression is ultimately indefensible, the authors argue that the West’s eastward expansion of NATO, the U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup, and Ukraine’s failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements prompted Putin to act.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict (OR Books 2022) ISBN 9781682193716, 198 pages

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nvasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival is the firsthand reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Luke Harding, New York Times bestselling author and Guardian correspondent. Harding writes about the astounding resilience in Ukraine and devastating atrocities in Bucha and elsewhere. With a focus on human stories and portraits of the leaders on both sides of war, Invasion captures a crucial moment in history that was the biggest news event of 2022 and an inflection point in international politics.

Luke Harding, Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival (Vintage, 2022) ISBN: 9780593685174, 336 pages

Yeva Skalietska, a young survivor of the war in Ukraine, shares her memories of the war in Ukraine through her diary entries. She began writing the diary when her grandmother and her found shelter in a bunker when the city where she lived came under Russian attack on February 24, 2022.

Skalietska describes the bombings she endured and her desperate escape journey from the conflict. From endless train rides and an overcrowded refugee center to settling in Ireland to put together a new life, You Don’t Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine is an inspiring and intimate story of a survivor hoping to be able to return home one day.

Yeva Skalietska, You Don’t Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine (Union Square & Co., 2022) ISBN: 9781454949695, 128 pages

No one has been more surprised by Volodymyr Zelensky’s power to inspire and mobilize his compatriots and the world than Vladimir Putin. Outfoxed and isolated, Putin is not the first person to have underestimated the former comedian.

Who is Volodymyr Zelensky? How did he become the international hero of our time? Zelensky: The Unlikely Ukrainian Hero Who Defied Putin and United the World tells you everything you need to know about this inspiring leader, covering his childhood, family history, and his career as a TV celebrity to the president of Ukraine.

Andrew L. Urban and Chris McLeod, Zelensky: The Unlikely Ukrainian Hero Who Defied Putin and United the World (Regnery Publishing, 2022) ISBN: 9781684513789, 192 pages

Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine is an overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involved since Vladimir Putin became prime minister and then president of Russia starting from the First Chechen War to the two military incursions into Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, and the eventual invasion of Ukraine itself. Mark Galeotti delves into Putin’s recreation of Russian military power and its expansion to include a range of new capabilities from mercenaries to operatives in a relentless information war against Western powers. Putin’s Wars provides an engrossing strategic overview of the Russian military and its successes and failures on the battlefield.

Mark Galeotti, Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (Osprey Publishing, 2022) ISBN: 9781472847546, 384 pages

T his collective work analyzes the ongoing conflict in Ukraine beyond simplistic media interpretations that limit the analysis solely to Vladimir Putin. The War in Ukraine’s Donbas: Origins, Contexts, and the Future gives voice to different social groups, scholarly communities, and agencies relevant to Ukraine’s recent history.

The authors reveal the deeper roots linked to the autonomy and history of the Donbas as a region, exploring local society and traditions, and the alienation from Ukraine caused by the events of Euromaidan. The book also takes a close look at the Minsk Accords in 2014 and the impact of the new president Volodymyr Zelensky with his efforts to bring the war to an end by negotiations.

David R. Marples, The War in Ukraine’s Donbas: Origins, Contexts, and the Future (CEU Press, 2022) ISBN: 9789633865972, 244 pages

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Economic Challenges, Embargo Issues, and a New Global Economic Order presents a cutting-edge analysis of the economic effects and challenges of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, touching on the EU sanctions on Russian energy, the global effects of an EU energy import boycott on Russia, and Ukraine’s political relationship with the EU in a global context. The book also explores the challenges to relations between the EU, China, and Russia caused by the invasion, the effects of the unfolding refugee crisis, military and humanitarian aid pledges to Ukraine, and the risks of reduced multilateralism within the world economy as a direct result of the war.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine provides a broader picture of the international effects of the conflict and its potential implications for policy design as we enter a new global order marked by the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Paul J.J. Welfens, Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Economic Challenges, Embargo Issues, and a New Global Economic Order (Springer International Publishing, 2022) ISBN: 9783031191374, 387 pages

In Ukraine’s Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022, the authors argue that Russia packaged the conflict in Crimea and Eastern Donbas as a “civil war” to claim non-involvement and lay out social science literature on civil wars to help understand why no political solution was found between 2015 and 2022.

Drawing on Ukrainian documentary sources, the book explains how Russia, after seizing Crimea, was reacting to events it could not control and sent troops only to areas of Ukraine where it knew it would face little resistance. Kremlin decision-makers misunderstood the attachment of the Russian-speaking population to the Ukrainian state and failed to anticipate that their intervention would transform Ukraine into a more cohesively “Ukrainian” polity.

Dominique Arel and Jesse Driscoll, Ukraine’s Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) ISBN: 101316511499, 320 pages

Diary of an Invasion is a collection of Andrey Kurkov’s writings and broadcasts from Kyiv documenting the shocking impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war. Kurkov has been a consistent satirical commentator in Ukraine and became an important voice for his people throughout the Russian invasion. He spends the sleepless nights of continuous bombardment of his city delivering the truth about this invasion to the world, and has also been able to fly to European capitals where he has been working to raise money for charities.

Diary of an Invasion is a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of the war. It provides political and historical commentary and accounts from Kurkov’s personal journal, exploring Russian and Ukrainian history and their complicated coexistence, and describing how Ukraine defies its occupation.

Andrey Kurkov, Diary of an Invasion (Mountain Leopard Press, 2022) ISBN: 9781914495847, 304 pages

The award-winning Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar provides a history of Ukraine, scoping from its emergence as a post-Soviet state to a country with increasing economic, cultural, and political ties to Europe and the United States, leading to Putin’s invasion.

As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Zygar circulated a Facebook petition that led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war forcing him to flee Russia. In his time as a journalist, Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and has had access to many prominent politicians and oligarchs. As an expert on Putin’s moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin’s plan regarding Ukraine, and in clear, chronological order explains how we got here.

Mikhail Zygar, War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine (Scribner, 2023) ISBN13: 9781668013724, 320 pages

ZOV: Inside Putin’s Corrupt War in Ukraine – A Dissident Soldier’s Story is a detailed, voluntary account by a Russian soldier participating in the invasion of Ukraine. Pavel Filatyev was a paratrooper in the invasion force that shelled the city of Kherson in February 2022. He grew sickened and angry with his part and posted a shocking exposé on social media of what he had witnessed. After his injury, he evacuated from the conflict and gave a day-by-day description of how the Russian army crossed into Ukraine and captured the city of Kherson.

Now in hiding, Filatyev bears witness to Ukraine’s battlefields, shelled cities, and the Russian conscripts’ inescapable choice of fighting in a senseless war or facing imprisonment back home. His story provides a chilling insight into life behind enemy lines and a powerful account of the people caught in Putin’s war. ZOV: Inside Putin’s Corrupt War in Ukraine will be published on July 6, 2023 and is a forthcoming title to keep an eye on.

Pavel Filatyev, ZOV: Inside Putin’s Corrupt War in Ukraine – A Dissident Soldier’s Story, Random House, 2023) ISBN: 9780593597385, 208 pages

Appearing for the first time in 2014 at the border with Ukraine and controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group is engaged in a number of conflicts. Syria and Libya were two countries where Russia’s involvement in civil wars and alleged employment of Wagner Group proxies were most visible.

In April 2012, when then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was asked in the Russian Duma about whether he supported the idea of creating a network of Russian private military companies, he replied positively and emphasized that PMCs could be tools of influence abroad, allowing the realization of national interests without the direct involvement of the state.

Mali

As reported by the Associated Press, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned Russia’s Wagner Group on Saturday against meddling with attempts to foster democracy in the West African country of Mali.

Mali “remains a linchpin for future stability in the Sahel and we have deep concerns about that stability and deep concerns about the extremism and terrorism that is spreading tentacles in the region,” Blinken stated during a joint press conference with Senegal’s foreign minister, Aissata Tall Sall. The Sahel region of West Africa encompasses a wide territory south of the Sahara Desert, where extremist organizations are battling for control of the region.

The French government on December 23, 2021 criticized the decision by the Malian transitional authorities to authorize the deployment of the Wagner Group, and accused Russia of sponsoring the private military company’s employment of mercenaries in the West African nation.

In a statement, the Western nations warned that the deployment of Wagner mercenaries could “lead to an aggravation of the human rights situation in Mali [and] threaten the agreement for peace and reconciliation” in the conflict-torn country.

Central African Republic (CAR)

The United Nations issued a report  on June 25, 2021, in which it accused Russian instructors in the Central African Republic’s armed forces of being engaged in massive indiscriminate killings, looting, and enforced disappearances. The report was authored by a panel of specialists. Despite the fact that the report to the United Nations Security Council makes no reference of those instructors being Wagner associates, news reports and the United Nations’ working committee on mercenaries establish the connection.

In order to train Central African Republic troops, President Touadéra has sought the assistance of the Russian government, and a Russian official serves as the president’s security advisor. Some analysts believe that this is part of a trend of Russian military involvement spreading throughout Africa.

As reported by the United Nations specialists group on March 31, 2021, the Russian contractors collaborate closely on a UN peacekeeping deployment that has been stationed in the Central African Republic since 2014. It is the purpose of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) to protect civilians while also creating an atmosphere that would enable the nation to establish long-lasting institutional structures.

The 13,500 UN forces are tasked with protecting civilians and preventing armed groups from inflicting harm on the populace. They helped secure the election, but they are helpless to disarm the rebels and are often attacked by the rebels themselves. Some have also been accused of sexually abusing children.

The commander of the EU training missions, General Jacques Langlade, stated that “Due to the control exerted by the mercenaries of the Wagner group over the CAR armed forces, the European Union, keen to respect international humanitarian law, has decided to temporarily suspend training”.

“This blurring of the lines between civil, military and peacekeeping operations during the hostilities creates confusion about the legitimate targets and increases the risks for widespread human rights and humanitarian law abuses,” said Jelena Aparac, Chair-Rapporteur of the United Nations working group on private military contractors.

On February 5, the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced their decision that the court holds jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Palestine. While the court did not elaborate on what steps would follow, it is expected that international criminal investigations will be commenced, and that, potentially, Israelis (and Palestinians) guilty of crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court will be indicted and, hopefully, put on trial.

Understandably, there has been great excitement for this decision amongst human rights advocates and proponents of Palestinian rights, especially because it comes after a long period of foot-dragging on the part of the ICC. People have been disappointed before – the ICC Prosecutor repeatedly refused to investigate the Freedom Flotilla case, where Israeli commandos had forcibly stopped ships with humanitarian supplies headed for Gaza and killed ten persons in international waters.

Instead of examining the case in the context of the ongoing blockade of Gaza by Israel and the many violations inflicted upon the population of that territory, the prosecutor viewed the incident in isolation, and stated that the gravity of the violations did not reach the level required by the ICC Rome Statute.

In late 2019, on the basis of a protracted, nearly five-year-long preliminary investigation, the prosecutor stated she was “satisfied” that war crimes were being committed in Palestine. However, in recognition of the “unique and highly contested legal and factual issues” with regard to Palestine, she requested the court to ascertain whether the ICC did indeed have jurisdiction over Palestine – a move that, in the eyes of many, appeared as an attempt at passing the hot potato. Many feared another disappointment, and have been elated with the recent decision.

There is no question that the decision of the ICC is an extremely positive development. Israel and its allies in the United States and other Western countries go to great pains to present the situation in Palestine as a battle of democracy against “Islamofascist terror,” one that can only be solved by total annihilation of the enemy.

Conversely, many do-gooders in the West perceive Palestine merely as a humanitarian crisis that can be solved by development aid for poor Palestinians, or as one requiring “conflict resolution” interventions where Jews and Arabs hug each other in workshops, and all is well.

When it comes to the treatment of Palestinians, impunity permeates all levels of the Israeli political and military apparatus.

All of these narratives are, of course, false – Palestine is a human rights crisis, which is characterized by impunity for the violators of human rights. Resolution obviously requires a political solution, but eradicating impunity and punishing persons guilty of human rights violations and war crimes must be at the core. It is not only that lasting peace requires justice – justice is in and of itself a vital goal.

Impunity in Israel for human rights violations

When it comes to the treatment of Palestinians, impunity permeates all levels of the Israeli political and military apparatus. From the lowest-ranking soldier in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) who shoots and kills Palestinians without justification, to the IDF general who orders the bombing of civilian homes, to the political leaders who incite genocide and instruct the building of Israeli colonies on stolen Palestinian land, the chances of being held to account have, up to this point, been practically zero.

A stark example of the situation is the case of Elor Azaria, an IDF soldier who was caught on video executing a wounded, defenseless Palestinian in the city of Hebron. Though international pressure forced the IDF to arrest and try him, thousands of Israelis demonstrated in his support, and Prime Minister Netanyahu and other ministers demanded leniency. He was eventually released after only nine months and became a hero in many quarters of Israeli society, appearing on television as a political consultant in recent elections.

Propaganda about the “only democracy in the Middle East” aside, it is clear that Israel will not hold violators to account. Therefore, it is vital that the ICC take the necessary action to punish offenders. Make no mistake: the Israeli military and political elite is aware of the great dangers international justice poses. Unsurprisingly, Israel is not state party to the ICC, nor is the United States, but 123 countries are. Should the ICC issue indictments, every one of those states would be under a legal obligation to arrest the suspect, making travel to those countries impossible.

Though not stated in so many words, the land that was occupied (and subjected to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians) by Zionist forces in 1948 is recognized as the sovereign territory of Israel, and is therefore not part of the equation.

High-ranking IDF officers are already issued with a special emergency number, should they be arrested while traveling abroad, and there are special teams of lawyers ready to jump to their defence. That this is all being done proves that Israel sees the writing on the wall. Do not believe the bravado of Netanyahu and others: the prospect of being hauled to court in The Hague keeps them up at night.

The shortcomings of international efforts: the injustice of the “two-state solution”

The decision of the ICC is, therefore, an important, positive step towards addressing impunity in Palestine. At the same time, it is worth pointing out that it has a serious shortcoming, namely that it covers only the portion of Palestine occupied by Israel in 1967, i.e. Gaza and the West Bank (which includes East Jerusalem). The ICC states explicitly that its jurisdiction extends only to those territories, and that it is only able to adjudicate violations that took place there.

Though not stated in so many words, the land that was occupied (and subjected to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians) by Zionist forces in 1948 is recognized as the sovereign territory of Israel, and is therefore not part of the equation. Even though Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (‘48 Palestinians’) live under a discriminatory regime with similar rights violations as Palestinians in the 1967 lands, and even though Palestinian refugees continue to suffer the violation of their internationally recognized right to return to their homes, those issues are not looked at as relevant.

Of course, as a legal matter, the ICC is correct: the state party to the ICC is the State of Palestine as recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012. Since that state is based on the Oslo framework, its territory can include only the land occupied by Israel in 1967 (a mere 22 percent of historic Palestine).

Indeed, that the right of Palestinians to self-determination is only to be recognized in territory occupied since 1967 (and, so it is suggested, no further) is stated clearly in numerous UN resolutions on the issue, including the one adopted by the General Assembly admitting Palestine as an observer state.

Herein lies the real problem with international efforts on the issue of Palestine: from the get-go, the so-called international community has de facto recognized the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and accepted the state of Israel. By doing so, it has failed to protect the rights of the Palestinian people.

UN General Assembly Resolution 181, the “Partition Resolution,” is a stark example. At the time of the resolution, Palestinians comprised approximately two-thirds of the population of Palestine, and owned approximately 93 percent of the land. Despite these undisputed facts, the UN’s great idea was to split the country and create two states, with Palestinians asked to give over half of the land to Zionist settlers who had recently arrived from Europe.

Though manifestly unjust, this “two-state solution” has been the framework for international intervention in Palestine to this day – indeed, now the Palestinians are expected to settle for even less than the Partition Plan of 1947.