This Week Those Books is chock-full of crucial context — from fiction and non-fiction — to the shouty, doomscroll news cycle.
Is Russia winning?
A new book floats a scary scenario. And a novel take on post-Soviet change
Russian interference, as visualised some years ago by TVOntario, a Canadian publicly funded English language educational television station
The Big Story:
Russia is often perceived as winning two key battles: dividing the West and charming the rest.
As Donald Trump pushes an end to the Ukraine war on terms favourable to Moscow, Russia’s President Putin visits India, the Saudi-Russia Business Forum is hosted by Riyadh and Russia’s state-owned arms export company does trade worth billions with 46 African countries.
Is Russia a resurgent great power or a bellicose pretender?
Our first book war-games what might happen if Russia wins the Ukraine war: “Scenarios expand the realm of possibilities in our minds. What is at stake in Ukraine and in our time only really sinks in when we think about what could happen if things do not turn out well.”
This Week’s Books:
- A political scientist issues an urgent call to action
- An exiled writer on what came after the Soviet project
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