Putin’s War on Ukraine : Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution (New ed)

Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.

For Vladimir Putin, this was a legacy-defining mission—to restore Russia’s sphere of influence and undo Ukraine’s surprisingly resilient democratic experiment.

Yet Putin’s aspirations were swiftly eviscerated, as the conflict degenerated into a bloody war of attrition and the Russian economy faced crippling sanctions.

How can we make sense of his decision to invade?This book argues that Putin’s policy of global counter-revolution is driven not by systemic factors, such as preventing NATO expansion, but domestic ones: the desire to unite Russians around common principles and consolidate his personal brand of authoritarianism.

This objective has inspired military interventions in Crimea, Donbas and Syria, and now all-out war against Kyiv. Samuel Ramani explores why Putin opted for regime change in Ukraine, rather than a smaller-scale intervention in Donbas, and considers the impact on his own regime’s legitimacy.

How has Russia’s long-term political and foreign policy trajectory shifted? And how will the international response reshape the world order?