Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

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The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage. The title refers to Putin’s hubris in launching the Ukraine invasion, yet this book is much more, charting how the dream of reclaiming Moscow’s old empire went from “the marginal fringes of Russian politics to become official Kremlin policy”. Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love and War (Bloomsbury, 2008), a memoir of three generations of Matthews' family in Russia, was named as a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph. [10] [11], shortlisted for The Guardian First Books Award, [12] The Orwell Prize, [13] and France's Prix Medicis Etranger. [14] Stalin's Children was translated into 28 languages. Written at what must have been hypersonic speed, Overreach is a remarkable achievement, with Matthews’s expert eye like an all-seeing drone buzzing from one side of the conflict to the other. We drop in everywhere from Putin’s long white table to Zelensky’s bunker, via the siege of Kyiv and the trenches of Mariupol. Matthews’s analysis of why the invasion has foundered also offers insights. He challenges, for example, the notion of Kyiv’s armed forces as outnumbered amateurs, pointing out that during the last eight years of the simmering Donbas conflict, some 900,000 Ukrainians have served, “making a vast reserve force with recent combat experience”.

Moscou Babylone (Les Escales, 2013), a novel based on Matthews' experiences in Moscow in the 1990s, has been published in French, [20] German [21] and Czech. It was chosen as the 'coup de coeur etranger' (favourite foreign book) at the 2013 Nancy Literary Festival, Le Livre sur la Place. [22] The book is remarkably well written, given that it must have been produced in haste. Matthews brings not only a lifetime of working in and studying Russia, but an eye for detail. He humanises the stories of soldiers (from both sides) as well as civilians caught up in the onslaught. These individual accounts often contain great courage and selflessness, but there are others which hold depravity.

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L'Ombre du Sabre (Les Escales, 2016) A novel inspired by the author's own experiences as a reporter in Chechnya in the 1990s and in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 [23] Matthews co-wrote the 2015 Russian television series Londongrad and played an episodic role in it. [32] Matthews also played the US Ambassador to Moscow in the 2017 Russian television series The Optimists. [33] Matthews’ focus on the major Russian non-Putin characters makes Chapter 4 and 5 the best and most interesting parts of the book. Matthews describes Surkov as “the most paradoxical and fascinating figure ever to have worked in Putin’s Kremlin”, and makes his case well. The portrait of Patrushev is also helpful for introducing readers to an essential figure in Russia’s recent past, the current war, and possibly the future too. The first section of Chapter 5 deserves a book of its own (perhaps by Matthews, perhaps by Mark Galeotti, whose work Matthews draws on) charting the long, agonising decline of the so-called “liberals” in the Kremlin, from Yegor Gaidar to Surkov, as they consistently failed to deliver the results that successive Russian leaders wanted. After a year of the conflict, the world wonders how the second best army in Ukraine (the Russian) is doing. And it is that the Russians are fighting a 20th century war in the 21st century. NATO is providing kyiv with modern weapons and although they are not tanks or planes, they are missiles capable of destroying tanks and planes.

Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of Russian America (Bloomsbury 2013), a history of Imperial Russia's doomed attempt to colonise America, was shortlisted for the 2014 Pushkin House Prize [15] for books on Russia. [16] [17] [18] [19] The use of second-hand sources, though, is the only way to provide a proper overview: in a war this big, no reporter can be everywhere. And besides, much of this book’s value is in exploring the war’s deeper roots. Putin is totally weakened: perhaps it would be the best result for the West, the bad thing is that Russia is leaving more and more of the international concert and this is bad for the world in general and especially for the Russians. In Part 3, Matthews attempts to devote the same careful analytical attention to events following the February 2022 invasion. The results are mixed, in large part because these events are simply too recent. Matthews adopts a thematic, rather than strictly chronological account. Important topics, such as shifts in Western attitudes to the war and the effectiveness of economic sanctions, receive attention. However, Matthews is constrained by the limited information available at the time of writing. In February 2023 the question of Western resolve, while less pressing than in late 2022, remains open in the face of a potentially protracted conflict. A full understanding of the true impact of economic sanctions, and the consequent decoupling of Russia from Western economies, awaits the sort of detailed analysis by economists that will take years.Drawing on over 25 years’ experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the Covid bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky. Overreach คลี่คลายคำถามข้างต้นและคำถามอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับต้นตอของสงครามอย่างน่าสนใจ ผ่านการย่อยข้อมูลมหาศาลและการสัมภาษณ์คนหลายร้อยคนทั้งในและนอกเครมลิน กระบวนการได้มาซึ่งข้อมูลของผู้เขียนก็น่าติดตามไม่แพ้เส้นเรื่องหลัก ทหารรัสเซียหลายคนให้การหลังจากที่ตกเป็นเชลย บางคนยอมให้ข้อมูลแบบนิรนาม ต้องนัดพบกันในสวนสาธารณะตามเวลาที่กำหนด คนสนิทของปูตินหลายคนยอมให้ข้อมูลแต่ระวังตัวแจ ชาวรัสเซียจำนวนมากที่รักชาติแต่ไม่รักปูตินอยากให้โลกรู้ว่าพวกเขาคิดอะไร Owen Matthews (born December 1971) is a British writer, historian and journalist. His first book, Stalin's Children, was shortlisted for the 2008 Guardian First Book Award, [1] the Orwell Prize for political writing, [2] and France's Prix Médicis Etranger. [3] His books have been translated into 28 languages. He is a former Moscow and Istanbul Bureau Chief for Newsweek. As with all books published in the midst of war this book is already somewhat out of date. Matthews records events up to the end of September 2022. So the Kharkiv offensive of that month is covered but the Russian retreat from Kherson is not. Nor is the Russian offensive around Bakhmut in the winter of 22/23. When observing a war from a far the tendency to view things in terms of battles and grand strategies sets in and the stories of suffering and heroism on the ground can often be lost in the fog of war.

Testimonies of captured Russian conscripts, Ukrainian civilians who escaped from occupation, and of the last journalists in besieged Mariupol tell the story of the war as it unfolded on the ground. Matthews’ interviews with men who launched Putin’s career, and others who have worked with him for years, help the reader to understand Putin’s motivations and to get inside the head of the world’s most secretive and dangerous leader. This is a grim conclusion – and very different from the cheerleading optimism that has informed much of the conflict’s coverage so far. Indeed, parts of this book left me wanting a stiff drink, like Matthews’s old Moscow pals. But as a historical rough draft of this century’s first major conflict, it’s compelling – if uncomfortable – reading. By mid-March, even Matthews himself has to leave for a while, fearing that his 19-year-old son, a Russian passport holder, may get drafted. Yet amidst this chaos and personal upheaval, he has produced a book that is not merely the first full account of the war, but may set the standard for some time to come. This then, provides the reader with accounts, quotes and insight from current and former insiders, blended with those of people who fought/are fighting or suffered from Putin's "Limited Special Operation", as the first six months of this war unfolded. Yet in a war already extensively reported from the Ukrainian side, it is Matthews’s take from Russia that may jolt readers the most. Russians, he points out, are long used to hardship, so despite the misery caused by sanctions and mobilisation, things would have to get “far, far worse” for any anti-Putin uprising.

Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreach tells the story not only of the war’s causes but how the first six months unfolded. An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Owen Matthews 'Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America' ". Pushkin House. This means that the book ends on more pessimistic note than is in retrospect justified. In September the Ukrainian army was pushing to recapture as much land as possible before winter set in and Europe froze under a natural gas embargo. As I read this in late January 2023 Europe hasn't frozen, wholesale gas prices have fallen and most Western nations are tripping over themselves to donate heavy weapons to Ukraine.

Measured against this standard, and considering the circumstances under which it was produced, the book is a success. Part 1 covers the historical origins of the 2022 invasion, stretching from Kyivan Rus’ to the election of Volodymyr Zelensky as President of Ukraine in 2019. Chapter 1 (“Poisoned Roots”) is necessarily concise and touches lightly, if at all, on many of the controversies of early Russian and Ukrainian history, but Matthews does a good job emphasising the fundamental uncertainty of key issues.MiG-29 ให้กองทัพอากาศยูเครน แต่ในเวลาต่อมาการเดินเกมการทูตแบบส่วนตัวของ หวังอี้ รัฐมนตรีต่างประเทศของจีน กับนาโต้และอเมริกาส่งผลให้จุดยืนเกี่ยวกับรัสเซียและสงครามครั้งนี้ขยับเข้ามาชิดกันมาก จนสีจิ้นผิงประกาศว่าโลกต้อง “ป้องกันไม่ให้เกิดวิกฤตินิวเคลียร์ในทวีปยูเรเซีย” ระหว่างเจอไบเดนในการประชุม G20 ที่บาหลี