Review

7 Books That Reveal How Kremlin Decision-Makers Think

Don’t read these new titles on Russia’s wars before bedtime. October 17, 2025, 2:30 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

A soldier is seen through bare branches as he reads by a campfire.

What prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine? Is it part of a wider war with the West—whatever “West” means these days? And how does Russia fight this conflict? Are the strategy and tactics novel, or are they rooted in the Soviet and tsarist past? And perhaps most importantly, why did so few of our supposed experts see this coming? This is not an academic question for international relations theorists. More than a million Ukrainian and Russian military casualties—not to mention the killed, maimed, traumatized, and

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