Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia (2024) [+]
Apr 27 2026
Battleground Ukraine covers the history of Ukraine from its independence in 1991 to about the end of 2023 after the war with Russia has been going on for almost two years. Author Adrian Karatnycky has been working for political think tanks and NGOs and mostly covering Ukraine since independence with lots of traveling and talking to political leaders from all sides.
Each chapter covers one presidency from Leonid Kravchuk who led the country before there was a real constitution to current president Volodymyr Zelensky who gets two chapters, one before the war and one since the war. The overall picture is a country that was divided between Ukrainian and Russian supporters with the two ethnic groups being mostly separate in the west and east of the country. Early government was full of corruption and privatization of state industries led to a powerful oligarchy who controlled large parts of the legislature by supporting their candidates. Some presidents tried to reform government and the economy with mixed success.
But all the presidents were pretty much part of the system either in the old Soviet hierarchy or new oligarchs who kind of liked government the way it was. Volodymyr Zelensky is different since he was a political comedian with a television show and large following who got elected to president by being appealing in social media and promising change. Although his presidency started fairly rocky because he didn't really have a plan and did things by feel and he found out rapid change is hard even if you get a large number of inexperienced legislatives elected on your party platform. But war changed that and he rallied the country and with something immediate and specific to focus on he's become an effective president.
Similarly Russia's actions helped unite Ukraine. First by taking Crimea and then the invasion a decade later. Part of it is absorbing Russophobe territories they increased the percentage of Ukrainianists but also showing their aggression they put the fear into the rest of the Russophobes so now the citizens have solidified into a Ukrainian people. Whether Ukraine is ultimately successful in reclaiming its lost territories or not depends a lot on Western aid and that is the ongoing story the book ends on.
I found this to be an interesting book as I knew very little about Ukraine beforehand. It's interesting how conflicting forces each corrupt have kind of cancelled out to end up with a more democratic Ukraine than you'd think. And this without Western help as we have a "you reform first then we'll help your burning country" which makes it really hard for a democracy to form.
Each chapter covers one presidency from Leonid Kravchuk who led the country before there was a real constitution to current president Volodymyr Zelensky who gets two chapters, one before the war and one since the war. The overall picture is a country that was divided between Ukrainian and Russian supporters with the two ethnic groups being mostly separate in the west and east of the country. Early government was full of corruption and privatization of state industries led to a powerful oligarchy who controlled large parts of the legislature by supporting their candidates. Some presidents tried to reform government and the economy with mixed success.
But all the presidents were pretty much part of the system either in the old Soviet hierarchy or new oligarchs who kind of liked government the way it was. Volodymyr Zelensky is different since he was a political comedian with a television show and large following who got elected to president by being appealing in social media and promising change. Although his presidency started fairly rocky because he didn't really have a plan and did things by feel and he found out rapid change is hard even if you get a large number of inexperienced legislatives elected on your party platform. But war changed that and he rallied the country and with something immediate and specific to focus on he's become an effective president.
Similarly Russia's actions helped unite Ukraine. First by taking Crimea and then the invasion a decade later. Part of it is absorbing Russophobe territories they increased the percentage of Ukrainianists but also showing their aggression they put the fear into the rest of the Russophobes so now the citizens have solidified into a Ukrainian people. Whether Ukraine is ultimately successful in reclaiming its lost territories or not depends a lot on Western aid and that is the ongoing story the book ends on.
I found this to be an interesting book as I knew very little about Ukraine beforehand. It's interesting how conflicting forces each corrupt have kind of cancelled out to end up with a more democratic Ukraine than you'd think. And this without Western help as we have a "you reform first then we'll help your burning country" which makes it really hard for a democracy to form.