The best books about Ukraine from a journalist who was based there

The best and most engaging history of Ukraine that I’ve read is Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe. I’m left with the impression of lands so desired that all neighbouring powers sought to control them. Ukraine emerges as central to major historical events. In his fluid narrative, Plokhy analyses the complex, troubled history of the region. His account spans centuries, chronicling the myriad of forces shaping Ukraine. Those forces included the Vikings, Scythians, Byzantine Empire, Mongols, Polish-Lithuanian Empire, Cossacks, and the Russian Empire. Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991; the Soviet Union collapsed later that year. Plokhy’s last chapter, which discusses Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, starts by citing words from the national anthem, “Ukraine has not yet perished.”

What strikes me most about this book is how prescient it is. Published in 2000, this assessment of the first few years of Ukrainian independence accurately flags that Russia never fully accepted it and explains why an independent Ukraine threatens Russia. The introduction provides an excellent, brief history of Ukraine. Later chapters focus on politics, economics, social and cultural issues, and foreign policy up to 1998. Dyczok, an academic, was an eyewitness to key historical events, reporting from Ukraine during its 1991 declaration of independence and after. I particularly recommend the chapter on Ukrainian-Russian relations. Although written long before Russia’s annexation of Crimea and subsequent invasion of Ukraine, much in that chapter foreshadows these critical events and helps account for why what happened did.

I chose Death and the Penguin for its unique, intriguing plot and also because it captures so beautifully the sinister, bizarre, shadowy undercurrent of life in Ukraine in the 1990s. At times back then, I remember wondering whether the deaths of some people that I knew were really accidents, as reported, or murders. It is precisely this state of not knowing that Kurkov handles so beautifully. Viktor, the main character in the novel, begins his newspaper job innocently enough, writing obituaries of prominent Ukrainians, still alive. One by one they begin to die. I’ll leave you to read the book to find out what happens next.

This is a devastating history of the Holodomor, the Soviet state engineered famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33. As Applebaum writes so thorough were the efforts to confiscate food from Ukrainian peasants that “just being alive attracted suspicion.” Despite eyewitness reporting at the time, accounts of the famine were denied. I interviewed some famine survivors when I was a journalist based in Ukraine but did not fully grasp the horrifying scale of what occurred. This book leaves you in no doubt of that.

This is a meticulously researched book by a former Moscow-based business journalist that documents Putin’s rise to power and how the siloviki (“security men and spies”) took over Russia’s economy as well as its political and legal system. “Parts of the KGB, Putin among them,” writes Belton, “embraced capitalism as a tool for getting even with the West.” She explains how laundering “black” money in the West began under the Soviets and became widespread and sophisticated during Putin’s rule. That laundered money was used to enrich powerful Russians but also for ideological purposes and for financing the 2014 takeover of Donbas and Crimea in Ukraine. Belton, who interviewed key players, has the skills and expertise necessary for understanding dealings in this murky business and political world.