Ukraine and Russia: From Civilied Divorce to Uncivil War

"In terms of books, this is Paul D’Anieri’s first one that deals with Ukraine-Russia relations. Before that, he studied the internal processes in Ukraine and to a degree in Russia—and that’s what he brings to the table. This book is more than just international relations theory or diplomatic history; Paul D’Anieri actually knows a lot about both countries. He starts in the late the 1980s and goes up to when the book was published in 2019, so when the war had already started, and the first stage of the war had passed. His argument is basically twofold. Firstly, that the roots of this story are in the history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and how it fell apart. He stresses the importance of Ukraine in that process, something I was just talking about. “What we see is the process of disintegration of one of the last world empires” His other big argument is that the war became almost inevitable because of a different political track chosen by Ukraine and Russia, in particular the issue of nation-building and the creation and consolidation of state in Ukraine. Ukraine becomes a democratic state; Russia moves in an authoritarian direction. This automatically puts Russia’s relations with Europe in a difficult position and issues of security become very important. He is very good at documenting and providing a chronology of how matters of security have affected Russian-Ukrainian relations since the 1990s, into the 2000s and the arrival of Putin and after. He gives a good explanation of the war and its background, not looking for some sensationalist explanations or looking at the personalities, but at the structural reasons. He is a political scientist, and the book is very well organized and well written. It explains a lot about the two countries and their political development, the choices that were made in both cases, and how those choices eventually led to this clash, the current confrontation. Yes, indeed—and he really brings this point home."