Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival

by Luke Harding

At home in the Kremlin, Putin examined what he called “the Ukrainian question.” Working in isolation, he called up books, files, and papers. Putin’s usual reading matter was composed of classified reports. This new material was open source. The result of his labor was a five-thousand-word article. It appears to be his own work. His focus was no longer current affairs but the distant past, shimmering like a vision before him. Published on the president’s website on June 12, 2021, the essay is titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” Putin lays out his controversial thesis in the first paragraph. He says he is returning to an idea he has long considered to be true: that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people.” The word in Russian is narod. They are, he writes, a “single whole.”