Ukraine's revolt, Russia's revenge

The 2013 anti-corruption revolution that saw the ouster of Ukraine's venal president set the trajectory for today's clash between the United States adn Russia over the future of democracy globally. A bloody war still tortures eastern Ukraine while the threat of further Russian military intervention looms. Those seeking to understand the seismic events that eventually included a U.S. impeachment inquiry must start by understanding the Euromaidan Revolution and its moral meaning for the Ukrainian people and the world. This book, told from the perspective of a U.S. diplomat who was based in Kyiv at the height of the revolution, puts into a readable narrative previously unpublished reporting by seasoned U.S. diplomatic and military professionals. The book is rich with information on Ukrainian high-level and street-level politics, a broad analysis of the international context, and vivid descriptions of people and places in Ukraine during the Euromaidan Revolution. In laying out the facts, the book also counters Russia's disinformation narratives about the revolution and America's role in it. While focusing on a single country during a dramatic three-year period, the book's universal themes – chief among them, truth versus lies and democracy versus autocracy – possess a broader urgency for our times. That urgency burns particularly hot for the United States and all other countries that are the targets of attacks on the democratic norms supporting our way of life. From his posting at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv from 2012 to 2014, Chris Smith and his colleagues observed and reported firsthand on the Euromaidan Revolution that flipped the balance of power in Ukraine and changed the trajectory of international politics in ways that are still unfolding. The book details Russia's attempts to abort the Ukrainian revolution through threats, economic pressure, lies, and intimidation. When all of that failed, the Kremlin exacted revenge by annexing Ukraine's territory of Crimea and by fomenting and sustaining a hybrid war in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people and continues to this day. Smith concludes that the events in Ukraine proved the necessity of "value-based foreign policy," both for the rest of the world and for the United States itself.