Resources for Understanding the War in Ukraine

Below is a list of resources, including articles, books, events, and films to help provide context and background for the war in Ukraine as well as resources on Ukrainian culture and history. The list will be regularly updated. 

Last updated on July 17, 2023.

  • A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (2005), by Kate Brown
  • Children of Rus': Right-Bank Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation (2013), by Faith Hillis
  • Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post Cold War Order (2015), Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2021), by Serhii Plokhii
  • The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union (2014), by Serhii Plokhii
  • Life Went on Anyway (2019), by Oleg Sentsov
  • A Loss: The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister (2021), by Olesya Khromeychuk
  • Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation (2017), by Serhii Plokhii
  • Lucky Breaks (2022), by Yevgenia Belorusets
  • The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan, Reilly Costigan-Humes (Translation), Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler (Translation)
  • On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine (2019), by Sonia Bilocerkowyz
  • Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film (2007), by Yana Hashamova
  • Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (2014), by Karen Dawisha
  • Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960-1985 (2010), by Sergei Zhuk
  • Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation (2007), by Serhy Yekelchyk
  • Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know (2020), by Serhy Yekelchyk
  • Ukraine Crisis: What it Means for the West (2014), by Andrew Wilson
  • Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals (2020), edited by Volodymyr Yermolenko
  • Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War (2019), by Paul D’Anieri
  • Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament: A History (2021), by Yuri Kostenko
  • Ukraine’s Outpost: Dnipropetrovsk and the Russian-Ukrainian War (2022), by Taras Kuzio, Sergei I. Zhuk, and Paul D’Anieri
  • Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (2021), by Timothy Frye