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I found the book fairly objective, which is a plus point. It oversimplifying to cast Ukraine as the good guys and Russians as the bad guys. Ukraine did have its issues and not everyone is blameless. Most rational people act in rational ways and Putin is no exception, although the invasion turned out to be a catastrophic blunder, and a gross misreading of the situation, he still acted as he did for a reason. That's what Overreach is all about. 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. To survive and be happy, Russians have so much to bury, to willfully ignore. Small wonder that the intensity of their pleasures and indulgences is so sharp; it has to match the quality of their suffering.” A good, well written book. My only reservation is this: if you are interested in Ukraine, read a decent paper each day and maybe listen to or watch programmes or Podcasts about the Russian invasion, almost all of the content will be broadly familiar to you. So claims that it is "astonishing" or in some way revelatory are overdone.
His inner clique, it seems, knew the war would isolate Moscow internationally, but figured it was still worth it. By turning Russia into somewhere that no liberal wanted to live, they could ensure power passed to their own children, many of whom already hold top government jobs. A country where millions died in socialism’s name now resembles the hereditary Tsarist aristocracy before it. 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. 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] 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.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. 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. Somewhere on his prudent little journey to power, Efremov had taught himself to smile. It was an underhand weapon to use on people, rather like silence on the telephone, but effective. Efremov smiled now, a thin smirk. Though he outranked nobody still seated at the table, his presence caused every man to stiffen and compose his face. Theirs was the quiet not of insolence, but of fear.”
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.There are other signs of this that go beyond a larger-than-average number of typos. In some cases, language is loose in a way that could be confusing. Igor Sechin appears twice in one list (with two distinct descriptions, both accurate). Matthews titles the profile of Surkov “The Grey Cardinal”, before frowning on using that epithet for Surkov when he later insists that “the title properly belonged to Nikolai Patrushev”. The claim that an appointment received by a young Sergei Shoigu in 1990 made him “equal rank with rising Party star Boris Yeltsin” may be strictly true, but the implicit suggestion that Yeltsin was a rising star in the Communist Party in 1990 is an unusual one since he was at that point in the final stages of a very messy divorce from the Party. An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin's Master Agent (Bloomsbury, 2019) [24] A biography of German Communist spy Richard Sorge, the first English language work written with extensive access to the Soviet archives. Chosen as a Book of the Year by The Economist magazine: "A tragic, heroic story, magnificently told with an understated rage." [25] What I admire most about the author’s writing in this book is it’s remarkable frankness. He does not try to achieve fake “balance” by making the Ukrainian Government sound as bad as the Russian Government. But what all sides overlook and their genuine mistakes are on full display and are carefully and shrewdly observed.
The author details the development of Russian nationalist attitudes from the fall of the Soviet Union and up the invasion. He also gives a detailed account of many of the idealogues that introduced Putin to Russian Ultranationalism and Fascism, in addition to figures in his inner circle. The portraits painted of figures such as Nikolai Patruschev are in particular quite chilling, being if anything more steeped in paranoia and conspiracy theory thinking. Patruschev is also thought to have been behind the planning and execution of both the Litvinenko assassination and the attempted assassinations of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Overreach คลี่คลายคำถามข้างต้นและคำถามอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับต้นตอของสงครามอย่างน่าสนใจ ผ่านการย่อยข้อมูลมหาศาลและการสัมภาษณ์คนหลายร้อยคนทั้งในและนอกเครมลิน กระบวนการได้มาซึ่งข้อมูลของผู้เขียนก็น่าติดตามไม่แพ้เส้นเรื่องหลัก ทหารรัสเซียหลายคนให้การหลังจากที่ตกเป็นเชลย บางคนยอมให้ข้อมูลแบบนิรนาม ต้องนัดพบกันในสวนสาธารณะตามเวลาที่กำหนด คนสนิทของปูตินหลายคนยอมให้ข้อมูลแต่ระวังตัวแจ ชาวรัสเซียจำนวนมากที่รักชาติแต่ไม่รักปูตินอยากให้โลกรู้ว่าพวกเขาคิดอะไร Rough edges and a weaker third act do not prevent Overreach from achieving its aims. It is timely, compelling and arguably more perceptive than could reasonably be expected so soon. It is strongly recommended, especially for readers who have been following the war since February 2022, or who have some prior knowledge of Putin or Russian politics.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”. Dining With the Author: Dangerous Misadventures With Owen Matthews". HuffPost. 28 April 2014 . Retrieved 5 June 2015. Russia loses the war: Putin can be removed and assassinated, his successor will surely be much worse. An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol. Overreach is an important and unparalleled piece of investigative journalism that will be the first to offer readers a panoramic view of how the most serious geopolitical crisis since World War II began – and how its endgame is likely to unfold.
A respected journalist draws on deep knowledge to explain the thinking behind Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The author briefly goes over some key battles such as the one for the Hostomel airport. However, there are few details about other major battles such as the siege of Mariupol and Azovstal. The war crimes at Bucha are covered in more detail including the story of the young Russian soldier that committed war crimes and was subsequently captured and sentenced to life in prison. Various actors in the war such as the foreign volunteers, the Chechens, the Wagner mercenaries are each discussed in turn. Owen Matthews | The Orwell Foundation". www.orwellfoundation.com. 17 October 2010 . Retrieved 24 May 2023. 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] 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.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] Interesting and well-written book for those who have not observed Russia or Ukraine closely. If you have, this is mainly a repetition of main events without very much new light shed.
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