Alexandru's Reviews > Overreach

Overreach deals with the Ukrainian-Russian conflict from its very beginning all the way to September 2022 and the Kharkiv counter-offensive. The book is split into two: the first half details the history of the Ukrainian-Russian relationship (including the Orange revolution, the Maidan revolution and the 2014 invasion) and then the second half details the 2022 invasion and the course of the war.

There were probably too many pages spent dealing with the background of the war and not enough on the actual war itself. Would have liked to read more about the battles, the strategies, the equipment and the commanders. It doesn't even mention

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.

The most interesting parts of the book are the individual stories of various people involved in both sides of the conflict from Ukrainian refugees and soldiers to the Russian conscripts. The many of stories of Ukrainian civilian suffering are hard to read, for example the story of a Ukrainian woman that had to first go through Russian in order to escape to Western Europe as it was safer than crossing the frontline.

Even though the author is very knowledgeable about Russia, being part Russian and having lived and worked there as a journalist, it feels that this book was written too quickly and only briefly covered the subject matter. I also noticed a couple of errors in the book such as the confusion of Bucharest and Budapest for the location of the NATO 2008 summit.

Overall this is a decent book but it is more like an introduction to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. I am hoping that once the war is over a definitive account can be written.