With all this time by the media looking at the Ukraine and Russian President Putin….
I have come upon a book by Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands……
The book was written in 2015 , and it looks indepth at the Ukraine, Russia and the Euroepan Union….
The book has it’s support and doubters ….
Sakwa points to a large country that is made up of people’s from differnt places, including a good amount that identify with Russia…..
He also takes the Europena Union to task for not taking the country seriously after it left the sphere of the old Soviet Union….
He reviews the political, culture and economic morass of the country …
He reminds that one Validmir Putin presided over the demise of the old Soviet Union and that efforts to include Russia in Europe by some turned into push/pull over Communism vs Democracy…
He points to something that President Biden probably knew back in the day….
That Putin sooner or later wouild seek to get back places where population’s actually identify with Russia while living in the ‘Ukraine’….
After Crimea ?
Those in the European and American intelligence community HAD to know that Russia was gonna come back for the Donmas region as they have a little more than a month ago…
Sakwa’s book was faetured in a PBS FRONTLINE Special….
It is something one might want discover if they want a look at BOTH sides of the coin about background to the current conflict/war in the Ukraine by Russia….
FRONTLINE has done several special’s on Putin and his politcal and military actions….
They are listed in the linked piece below….
A still of Russian President Vladimir Putin from FRONTLINE’s 2017 documentary “Putin’s Revenge.”
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, it has met with fierce resistance from Ukrainians, turned a million people into refugees, killed an unknown number of others, prompted unprecedented sanctions, sparked an International Criminal Court investigation into potential war crimes, and revived fears of nuclear war.
What brought Putin — and the world — to this point?
For years, FRONTLINE has been reporting on Putin’s path to power and how he has wielded it, as well as on Russia and Ukraine’s fraught relationship. As Putin wages war on Ukraine, revisit our earlier coverage, below, to explore Putin’s rise and motivations, his history and grievances with the West, and events that presaged this moment. And stay tuned for the upcoming FRONTLINE documentary Putin’s Road to War, premiering at 9 p.m. Eastern Tuesday, March 15….
…
In this documentary with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, FRONTLINE traced Putin’s journey from unemployed spy to modern-day czar, investigating accusations of criminality and corruption that surrounded his ascent. The film examined how Putin accumulated wealth and power, leading to autocratic rule and the specter of a new Cold War. Key players — from a senior police officer who wanted to arrest Putin on corruption charges, to an investigator looking into a series of deadly apartment bombings in 1999 — shed light on unsettled questions about Putin’s rise and reign. “Instead of seeing Russia as a democracy in the process of failing, we should see it as an authoritarian system in the process of succeeding,” Putin’s Kleptocracy author Karen Dawisha, who died in 2018, told FRONTLINE…
image ….Sakwa Book…Amazon
Putin had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
He was an intelligence officer at that time.
If that book, which I have never heard of, says that?It is not a serious work.
….n May 1990, Putin was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to the mayor of Leningrad Anatoly Sobchak. In a 2017 interview with Oliver Stone, Putin said that he resigned from the KGB in 1991, following the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, as he did not agree with what had happened and did not want to be part of the intelligence in the new administration.[55] According to Putin’s statements in 2018 and 2021, he may have worked as a private taxi driver to earn extra money, or considered such a job.[56][57]
On 28 June 1991, he became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Mayor’s Office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments[58] and registering business ventures. Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye. It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted the export of metals valued at $93 million in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived.[59][36] Despite the investigators’ recommendation that Putin be fired, Putin remained head of the Committee for External Relations until 1996.[60][61] From 1994 to 1996, he held several other political and governmental positions in Saint Petersburg.[62]…
Wiki….
I believe that the author says and the Wiki piece backs up that Putin ‘watched’ the collapse of the Soviet Union….
He quit the KGB in 1991 and several years later Yeltsin promoted him to the head of the FSB the KGB processor….
He rose to REALY outside power in the mid 1990’s…..
But he WAS on his way from 1991…..
Iregardless….
The book IS an interesting background study of a complex situation that has been around for a LONG time…..
And tries to give the ‘why’ the Russian President is doing what he started more than a month ago….
One gets the impression that the author has a axe to grind with the West and Europe for how they have misjudged Russia and Putin….
There are NO apologies for the brutality inflicted on the people of the Ukraine by the Russian military….