From "one of Russia's smartest and best-sourced young journalists" (The New York Times) comes the first work by a Russian author to reveal his country's history of oppressing Ukraine and provide an unprecedented overview of the war for Ukrainian independence that affects us all. As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar circulated a Facebook petition signed first by hundreds of his cultural and journalistic contacts and then by thousands of others. That act led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war, and Zygar fled Russia. In his time as a journalist, Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players--from politicians to oligarchs. As an expert on Putin's moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin's plan regarding Ukraine, and here, in clear, chronological order he explains how we got here. In 1996 to 2004, Ukraine became an independent post-Soviet country where everyone was connected to the former empire at all levels, financially, culturally, psychologically. However, the elite anticipated that the empire would be back and punish them. From 2004 to 2018, there were many states inside one state, each with its own rulers/oligarchs and its own interests--some of them directly connected with Russia. In 2018, a new generation of Ukrainians arrive, and having grown in an independent country, they do not consider themselves to be part of Russia--and that was the moment when the war began, as Putin could not tolerate losing Ukraine forever. Authoritative, timely, and vitally important, this is an unprecedented overview of the war that affects us all and continues to threaten the future of the entire world as we know it.

Did Lenin really create the nation of Ukraine with a stroke of his pen? Was even its greatest hero in fact a Nazi? Just what does it owe to the benevolence of Catherine the Great? Whatever else it is, the Russian invasion has been an assault on historical truth - a mythic struggle in the name of an imperial unity that is itself no more than a myth. Yet the lies didn't start in 2022, and the truth of Ukrainian history has always been slipperier than any simple patriot might wish. In War and Punishment, Mikhail Zygar chronicles how Russia was led to the brink of violence by more than 300 years of fake history, folk tales and propaganda, from the legendary deeds of the Cossacks to the 1970s spy novels that thrilled a young Vladimir Putin. With a virtuoso display of erudition and scholarhsip, he penetrates this fog to reconstruct the strange but true stories of Russo-Ukrainian relations over the past centuries, and uncover the often absurd origins of Russia's imperial delusions. His insights are all the more valuable because of his extraordinary connections. A noted expert on the Putin circle, Zygar also has extensive contacts with President Zelensky and his staff. And though he is now labelled a foreign agent in Russia, he has obtained many candid interviews with witnesses on both sides of the war - from oligarchs to former presidents, gangsters to comedians. With the help of their frank testimony, here is the real story behind Russia's dream of conquest.

Did Lenin really create the nation of Ukraine with a stroke of his pen? Was even its greatest hero in fact a Nazi? Just what does it owe to the benevolence of Catherine the Great? Whatever else it is, the Russian invasion has been an assault on historical truth - a mythic struggle in the name of an imperial unity that is itself no more than a myth. Yet the lies didn't start in 2022, and the truth of Ukrainian history has always been slipperier than any simple patriot might wish. In War and Punishment, Mikhail Zygar chronicles how Russia was led to the brink of violence by more than 300 years of fake history, folk tales and propaganda, from the legendary deeds of the Cossacks to the 1970s spy novels that thrilled a young Vladimir Putin. With a virtuoso display of erudition and scholarhsip, he penetrates this fog to reconstruct the strange but true stories of Russo-Ukrainian relations over the past centuries, and uncover the often absurd origins of Russia's imperial delusions. His insights are all the more valuable because of his extraordinary connections. A noted expert on the Putin circle, Zygar also has extensive contacts with President Zelensky and his staff. And though he is now labelled a foreign agent in Russia, he has obtained many candid interviews with witnesses on both sides of the war - from oligarchs to former presidents, gangsters to comedians. With the help of their frank testimony, here is the real story behind Russia's dream of conquest.

All the Kremlin's Men is a gripping narrative of an accidental king and a court out of control. Based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle, this book presents a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. The image of Putin as a strongman is dissolved. In its place is a weary figurehead buffeted--if not controlled--by the men who at once advise and deceive him. The regional governors and bureaucratic leaders are immovable objects, far more powerful in their fiefdoms than the president himself. So are the gatekeepers-those officials who guard the pathways to power-on whom Putin depends as much as they rely on him. The tenuous edifice is filled with all of the intrigue and plotting of a Medici court, as enemies of the state are invented and wars begun to justify personal gains, internal rivalries, or one faction's biased advantage. A bestseller in Russia, All the Kremlin's Men is a shocking revisionist portrait of the Putin era and a dazzling reconstruction of the machinations of courtiers running riot.

The Empire Must Die portrays the vivid drama of Russia's brief and exotic experiment with civil society before it was swept away by the despotism of the Communist Revolution. The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. In Europe, the Ballet Russe was the height of chic. Novelists and playwrights blossomed, political ideas were swapped in coffee houses and St Petersburg felt briefly like Vienna or Paris. The state, however couldn't tolerate such experimentation against the backdrop of a catastrophic war and a failing economy. The autocrats moved in and the liberals were overwhelmed. This story seems to have strangely prescient echoes of the present.