An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol.

Owen Matthews was born in London in 1971. His mother Lyudmila was born in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, [4] and he speaks Russian as a native speaker. Matthews's maternal grandfather, Boris Bibikov, was a Party man, a true believer in the great Bolshevik experiment which would bring about a new person, homo sovieticus. [5] Russia loses the war: Putin can be removed and assassinated, his successor will surely be much worse. Amidst this analysis, however, Matthews remains acutely aware of the glaring disparity between the consequences faced by Russia and the devastating toll exacted upon Ukraine's economy, infrastructure and, most importantly, its people. The two men in the hall who had the most detailed knowledge of actual events and conditions in Ukraine came in for the roughest ride. Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin’s on-the-ground point man for relations with the LDNR and Crimea, had grown up in Ukraine. After a wordy exposition where he admitted that Kyiv was not ready to re-incorporate the LDNR on the terms set out in Minsk-2, Kozak attempted a real discussion on the future of the Donbas republics. But Putin brusquely cut him off, twice.

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This then, provides the reader with accounts, quotes and insight from current and former insiders, blended with those of people who fought/are fighting or suffered from Putin's "Limited Special Operation", as the first six months of this war unfolded. We hear the story of Vadim Shishimarin, a 21 year old Russian solider whose experience of the war involved sitting for days in a parked armoured vehicle, being blown up, seeing a dozen of his comrades killed, wandering through the countryside north of Kiev, sleeping in sheds and pigsties before turning himself at the fist Ukrainian town. The only reason we know this story of incompetence and waste is that, as he tried to escape in a stolen car, he gunned down Oleksandr Shelipov, a retired man out for ride on his bike.

Nor, in a country that still suffers an “addiction to imperial fantasies”, is it likely that Putin’s replacement will be Gorbachev 2.0. Nationalism, Matthews says, is a far more powerful current in Russia than pro-Western liberalism. He adds: “A military defeat at the hands of NATO weaponry would likely strengthen, not weaken, that tendency.”

Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Matthews, Owen (28 August 2008). "Stalin's Children by Owen Matthews". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 24 May 2023.

Feb 2022, quote formerly pro-NATO Putin rightly stating before wrongly invading, "De-Nazify Ukraine." Putin had made his official message clear in the characteristically direct and universally comprehensible way he had communicated for two decades – the language of boss–subordinate relations. At its most superficial, he had signalled that recognition of the Donbas republics was right and proper, in the collective and unanimous opinion of Russia’s top public statesmen. Subconsciously, but with equal clarity, he had also denoted who was in the inner circle, who was in the chorus, who was on the edges. And most of all, who was the ultimate boss. In his Pushkin House Book Prize-nominated “Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine,” Owen Matthews explores the sources of this monumental miscalculation. 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. Owen Matthews (born December 1971) is a British writer, historian and journalist. His first book, Stalin's Children, was shortlisted for the 2008 Guardian First Book Award, [1] the Orwell Prize for political writing, [2] and France's Prix Médicis Etranger. [3] His books have been translated into 28 languages. He is a former Moscow and Istanbul Bureau Chief for Newsweek.

Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreachtells the story not only of the war’s causes but how the first six months unfolded.