The first authoritative, illustrated account of Russia’s high-risk strike on Ukraine’s capital, the centerpiece of its failed 2022 invasion plan.

In 2022, Vladimir Putin was convinced he could seize Kyiv, install a puppet government, and close his fist on Ukraine in a matter of weeks, with minimal fighting. In this book, Dr Mark Galeotti, a world expert on Russian military history, explains how Russia’s lightning conquest was conceived and planned, and how it was defeated.

He explains how Russia’s commanders did not expect to go to war and were forced to invade under-prepared, and how they nonetheless made a concerted attempt to seize Hostomel Airport and from there take the capital, with mercenaries detailed to hunt down the government. But Ukrainian military and civilian resistance thwarted the attack and within a month, the Russians were already on the retreat, leaving behind the smoking remains of the 40-mile invasion column outside Kyiv.

Drawing extensively on Russian and Ukrainian sources including interviews with soldiers involved in the operation, and fully illustrated with photographs, original artwork and maps, this is the most detailed and compelling study of this operation available in English. It is the story of a strike whose defeat signalled both the shattering of Putin’s expectations of an easy victory, and the start of the reorientation of the war towards the south-east.

Dr Mark Galeotti is an internationally recognized expert on Russian politics and security. Educated at Cambridge and the LSE, he has taught in the UK, US, Russia and Czechia; been attached to the British Foreign Office; and has advised NATO and several governments. He now runs the consultancy Mayak Intelligence; and is an honorary professor at UCL and a senior associate fellow with RUSI and the Council on Geostrategy. He has written more than 30 books, including Putin’s Wars and Forged in War.