Our Enemies Will Vanish

November 20, 2023
Wall Street Journal reporter Trofimov (Siege of Mecca) offers a comprehensive and harrowing eyewitness report on the war in Ukraine that focuses on the heroism of the country’s civilians and soldiers. After Russian forces invaded in February 2022, “tens of thousands” of Ukrainian ex-pats living in Europe and the U.S. returned to take up arms alongside “local villagers with hunting rifles” and “unruly militias” financed by soccer fan clubs, oligarchs, and political parties (some with “a far-right political history”). Trofimov, who was born in Ukraine, describes how this “powerful network of volunteer groups” helped repel Russian forces. Reporting both from the front lines as well as far behind them, Trofimov covers the defense of Kyiv, the destruction of Mariupol and the failed peace negotiations in Istanbul. He notes how Russia’s attempts to demoralize local people with acts of brutality bolstered Western commitment to send more weapons. Interviewing civilians and soldiers, he also relays the dangers he and his photographer and driver faced in war zones and describes with palpable emotion seeing places of his youth. This thorough overview of the conflict extends until just before Ukraine’s offensive to retake Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in June 2023. Readers seeking a blow-by-blow account of the war will want to take a look.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
A Ukrainian-born foreign affairs correspondent maps the war in progress. As someone who grew up in Kyiv and speaks both Ukrainian and Russian, Wall Street Journal reporter Trofimov, author of The Siege of Mecca, offers a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into the continuing conflict, via both official reports and firsthand accounts from the streets. In Feb. 23, 2022, when "Kyiv was still a city at peace," the author's meeting with former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko tipped him off to what was about to happen, as officials began to flee. "Russian triumph within days was a foregone conclusion, Western intelligence services predicted," Trofimov reports; no one seriously believed Ukraine could hold off Russian forces. "For centuries, Russian military power had terrified Europe," writes the author. "As for this place called Ukraine, was it, deep down, a real country after all?" Along with Spanish photojournalist Manu Brabo (the book contains a photo insert), the author moved toward the action, first from Kyiv in the first hours of the Russian onslaught, as the Ukraine Territorial Defense, National Guard, and Air Force helped withstand the capture of the crucial Hostomel Airport; to Kharkiv and Mariupol, strategic cities in the north and south, respectively; Voznesensk and Mykolaiv; and eventually to the Donbas, where Putin withdrew his forces reluctantly to dig in and retrench by April. Along the tumultuous journey of many uncertain months, the author interviewed scores of fighters, civilians, and officials, and he capably reveals how Ukraine managed to channel its steely motivation and national unity into real action on the battlefield. Trofimov also ably conveys that despite some wobbly local officials whose loyalties have been tested, there's been no question where Ukraine has stood since 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea and essentially "forfeited the sympathy of most Ukrainians, likely for generations." Terrific on-the-ground reportage during the initial fraught months of the ongoing war.

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Starred review from December 1, 2023
The aggression and atrocities of Putin's invasion are matched by the stalwart bravery of Ukrainian resistance. Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and a veteran war reporter, traveled across his homeland to talk with the soldiers, civilians, and leaders enduring the violence of the Russian war machine. This in-depth report of his findings offers a detailed picture of the destruction and suffering caused by Russian bombing and shelling. Just as important, Trofimov conveys the will to fight of Ukrainians, in uniform and out, and their determined hopes for victory and Ukraine's independence. The author does an excellent job placing the unprovoked attack within the historical context of Ukrainian resistance to Russia and Russia's equal insistence on dominating Ukraine. Trofimov also demonstrates the power of words in war as he examines the slogans, memes, and speeches that Ukrainians rally behind, contrasted with the empty and often ridiculous Russian propaganda used to justify and rationalize Putin's invasion. This tour de force covers the first year of war in Ukraine and a solid second draft of history, as the author intended. We can hope for a second volume that will be the last, chronicling a truly independent Ukraine.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.